Atonement
by PepperjackCandy
Summary: After Harry and Draco's graduation and Voldemort's defeat, Snape carries on with his life. (ch. 8-10 -- Harry and Draco return for a visit)
1. Arrival

Title: Atonement, Chapter 1 -- Arrival   
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13 - I hesitate to make it anything less because some of Snape's memories might be a little grimmer than I'd feel comfortable making a PG rating  
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. Alex Farrell, however, is mine.  
  
A/N: I'm sure that Alan Rickman will be excellent as Snape, but in my heart, Snape will always be [Paul Darrow][1].  
  
And, as I'm a perennial (Blake's 7) Avon/Cally 'shipper, Alex is probably played by [Jan Chappell][2]  
  
==============  
  
The students had left for the year, and as they always did at the end of the year, Snape went to visit Dumbledore to discuss the previous year. And to make his annual pitch for the Defense Against the Dark Arts job.  
  
"Eventful year." Snape said by way of an opening.  
  
"They always are." Dumbledore leaned back in his chair.  
  
"I wasn't expecting Ravenclaw to take the House Cup this year."  
  
"No-one was. But with two of their most colorful characters out of commission for half the year, Slytherin and Gryffindor really didn't have a chance." Dumbledore grinned. "Especially since *some* teachers insisted on taking points from both houses' seventh-year classes every meeting."  
  
"Not every meeting," Snape said defensively. "Just most of them." He admitted wryly.  
  
"Tell me. Did you see it coming? Harry and Draco falling in love?"  
  
Snape gave a half-smile. "Not as such, no. But I've always thought there was more to their relationship than met the eye. Particularly on Malfoy's side of the conflict. He just spent far too much effort trying to get Potter's attention for me to believe that they were indifferent towards one another."  
  
"Have they set a wedding date?"  
  
Snape nodded. "Next June. At the end of the Quidditch season."  
  
"So they have decided to play Quidditch professionally, then?  
  
Snape nodded. "They're currently in negotiations with the Chudley Cannons."  
  
"Good." Dumbledore nodded. "The Cannons have needed a championship for the past few years."  
  
There was a long silence then. _Well, I guess it's now or never._ Snape thought.  
  
"So, I was thinking," Snape began nonchalantly, "what about that Defense Against the Dark Arts job?"  
  
He wasn't in the least surprised when Dumbledore sighed sadly and shook his head. "Severus, you know that I cannot give you that position."  
  
As if this were the first time he'd ever been refused the job, tears stung Snape's eyes. "Why, Albus? It cannot possibly be for the same reason you've always given me - that I'd be too focused on Voldemort and would leave them unable to defend themselves against other threats. I'm certain that I'd be able to give a more balanced curriculum now that Voldemort's dead!"  
  
To his surprise, he saw that Dumbledore was barely hanging onto his composure. "My reasons are purely selfish. I am beginning to believe that there is something to the notion that the Defense Against the Dark Arts job is cursed. And to give the position to you would mean that I'd lose my best friend."  
  
Snape's breath came out in a whoosh, as if Dumbledore had actually hit him in the stomach. "I'm your best friend?" He asked, amazed.   
  
"Who else?"  
  
"I always figured Minerva, or possibly even Poppy. . . ."  
  
Dumbledore shook his head. "No. They're very good friends, true, but I cannot be myself around them like I can around you."  
  
"Really?"   
  
"Really."  
  
Snape was silent while he digested this new information. He knew that he'd always thought of Dumbledore as his best friend, but he'd never dreamed that the Headmaster thought the same about him.  
  
"So," Snape said, trying to restart their conversation, "do you have any candidates for the Dark Arts job?"  
  
Dumbledore nodded. "A couple of applications have come across my desk. There's one in particular I'm leaning towards, a muggle-born former police officer."  
  
"Police officer? Things aren't as bad as all that around here, I hope." Snape grinned.  
  
"No. They're not. But the way I look at it, if I'm doomed to have a different Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher every year, I might as well make the most of it. And Alexandra Farrell's past history as a Muggle police officer gives her a very distinctive point of view."  
  
"It sounds to me like you've already made your decision."  
  
One month later, Dumbledore sent Snape into Hogsmeade to pick Alexandra up and bring her to the school. "I'd go myself . . ." Dumbledore sighed as three more owls joined the two that were already on his desk.  
  
"I'll handle it." Snape replied. "I didn't have anything else to do this afternoon anyway."   
  
This wasn't strictly true. Snape had found a book with some new potions he was desperate to try out, but Dumbledore did look like he was in a bind, and a part of Snape wanted to see this new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher up close.   
  
As he opened the door to step out, another owl landed on Dumbledore's desk, and as he began the descent from Dumbledore's office, Dumbledore yelled in the background, "Minerva!!!"  
  
He took one of Hagrid's horseless carriages into Hogsmeade and stopped it outside the Three Broomsticks. He sat outside for a few minutes, wondering how he was going to recognize her. Was he supposed to stand on a chair and yell for her?  
  
As he walked in, Rosemerta greeted him at the door. "Don't see much of you around here."   
  
"I'm not here to socialize, I'm just here to pick up the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher." Snape said gruffly, grasping the side seam of his robe and fiddling with it nervously.  
  
"You are Albus Dumbledore?" A woman's voice came from the dimly-lit recesses of the pub.  
  
"I'm not." He turned to look at her. She was about his age, mid-30s or thereabouts, tall, thin, with hair that hung in ringlets that, if she brushed them out, would leave her with frizzy hair much like Hermione Granger's - or was her name Weasley by now? "Severus Snape. Potions Master." He gave her a half-smile and extended his right hand.  
  
She took his hand, shaking it firmly. "Alex Farrell. I was expecting Headmaster Dumbledore to meet me here."  
  
"I'm sorry to disappoint you. But Albus was unavoidably detained. There's quite a lot of administrative work involved in his position. You'd better get your things. You need any help?"  
  
She shook her head. "I only have the one trunk. I can it by myself."  
  
He showed her where the carriage was parked outside and told her that he'd wait there for her. She disappeared into the pub, where she had put her trunk for safekeeping.  
  
_I suppose I should have been more insistent that I help her with her trunk. It would be the polite thing to do,_ he thought as he stood by the carriage, but when Alex returned moments later guiding her trunk easily with one hand, he decided that she really *could* handle one trunk by herself.  
  
Smiling at him, she guided the trunk into the carriage, then climbed up into the passenger's side of the carriage. Snape climbed up into the driver's side and they headed off towards Hogwarts.  
  
They rode nearly the entire way back to Hogwarts in silence. However, when they made the last turn before entering the grounds, she leaned forward, her eyes wide. "Is that it? Hogwarts?"   
  
Snape smiled at her. "Yes, it is. Pretty impressive?"  
  
"Very."  
  
Snape saw the castle as if for the first time as it sprawled across the countryside, pennons waving from its turrets.   
  
"Somehow the castle seems larger than it did when I first saw it, over 20 years ago."   
  
He had spoken to himself, so he startled a little when Alex responded. "Surely that's just your memory playing tricks on you."  
  
He smiled at the castle proprietarily, feeling a bit like he thought that Dumbledore must. "Perhaps. But perhaps not. All sorts of unexplained and unexpected things happen at Hogwarts." Suddenly feeling like a child again, he widened his eyes dramatically, "It wouldn't surprise me at all if someone, be it ghost, house-elf, or something else, has continued working on the building all these years."  
  
"You're joking, right?" Alex asked.  
  
Snape didn't answer her. With a wicked half-grin, he merely directed the carriage through the gates and onto Hogwarts' property.  
  
After leaving the carriage, Snape led the awed Alex into Hogwarts.   
  
Her only response as they crossed the threshold of the main entrance was, "I never imagined. . . . I mean, we went to castles on school field trips and things, but I never imagined . . ., " her eyes wide.  
  
Snape led Alex directly to the gargoyle at the base of Dumbledore's stairs. "Square candies that look round." He spoke, and the gargoyle promptly leaped aside.   
  
He indicated for Alex to go first, and then stepped onto the moving staircase that led to Dumbledore's office door.  
  
Once they were on Dumbledore's doorstep, Snape knocked smartly.   
  
"Come on in, Severus." Dumbledore called out.   
  
Snape opened the door, and Dumbledore rose to his feet. "Ah. You must be Miss Farrell. Professor Farrell, now." He smiled at Alex.   
  
Snape turned to leave.  
  
"Severus," Dumbledore called out.  
  
Snape halted in his path to the door and turned to face Dumbledore. "Yes?"  
  
"Will you be available later to give Professor Farrell a tour of the building and grounds?"  
  
Snape sighed. "I had planned to use today to start coming up with new ways to torment the Gryffindors next year."   
  
Dumbledore, who could tell that Snape was joking, pursed his lips in silent disapproval as an owl landed on his desk. "I really could use your help."  
  
Snape sighed. "All right. But I'm starting to believe that those owls really aren't giving you any kind of urgent information. I think you're using them to make me co-operate with you."  
  
"Would I do that?" Before Snape could respond, Dumbledore said, "After Professor Farrell and I are done here, I'll bring her down to the dungeons."  
  
Snape nodded and left the room.   
  
Alex looked startled. "Dungeons?"  
  
Dumbledore gave her a benevolent smile. "That's where Severus has his office and apartments."  
  
"Oh. And what's a 'Gryffindor'?"  
  
Dumbledore's smile widened. "It's one of the four houses here at Hogwarts."   
  
When Alex's expression became even more confused, he elaborated. "Hogwarts was founded by four wizards." He took out a sheet of the letterhead and pointed as he spoke. "These are their sigils. They were, clockwise from the top left, Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Helga Hufflepuff.  
  
"Each of these four founders had different visions for the school, and in their memories, the school has always been divided into four houses along those lines. It breaks down roughly into Gryffindor stands for courage, Ravenclaw for knowledge, Hufflepuff for loyalty, and Slytherin . . . . Well, 'ambition' sounds so harsh. . . ."  
  
"And which was Severus Snape?"  
  
"Severus was in Slytherin. In fact, he's the Head of Slytherin House. That accounts for his comment about tormenting the Gryffindors. Gryffindor and Slytherin have always been rivals. Ever since the days of Godric and Salazar."   
  
"An ambitious Potions Master." Alex said consideringly.  
  
"Well, let's talk for a moment about your position here on the staff of Hogwarts." Dumbledore changed the subject. "You will meet the rest of the staff tonight at dinner."  
  
===========  
  
A/N II: Alexandra is the feminine form of Alexander, which means "protector." Farrell, from one of the sources I looked at, is Celtic for "courageous." Guess what kinds of traits she's gonna have?  
  
And just in case you're wondering, this is the Mary-Sue-est part of Alex. She's based on the kind of women I idolized as a child. You know, Emma Peel, Charlie's Angels, Wonder Woman. . . . 

   [1]: http://www.blakes-7.co.uk/chars/Avon/avon.htm
   [2]: http://www.blakes-7.co.uk/chars/Cally/cally.htm



	2. A Tour of the Castle

Title: Atonement, Chapter 2 - A Tour of the Castle   
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13  
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. All I own is Alex Farrell.  
  
=============  
  
After Dumbledore had filled Alex in on her duties and responsibilities as a member of the Hogwarts staff, he led her down the staircase outside his office, then through a maze of hallways to the stairs that led down to the dungeons.  
  
"I hope I can find my way around." Alex said as they started down the stairs.  
  
"Don't worry. We've got seventh year students who get lost occasionally." Dumbledore assured her, his voice bouncing from the walls of the dungeon. "And I'm sure you'll do fine."  
  
It was then they heard Snape's laughter.   
  
Snape sat at his desk, leafing through an old tome on potions. _Sleeping draughts,_ he thought, turning page after page. He passed by love potions, out-of-love potions, health elixirs. An eternal life potion caught his eye. He skimmed it. "Eternal life! This turns you into a rock!" He laughed uproariously, but stopped when he heard Dumbledore clearing his throat.  
  
"Oh. I wasn't expecting you so soon." Snape hoped he wasn't blushing, but he had the awful, humiliating feeling that he was.  
  
"Apparently not." Snape could tell that Dumbledore was trying to contain his own amusement.  
  
He looked over at Alex, who was still standing in the doorway, no recognizable emotion showing on her face. Snape felt a sudden rush of gratitude to the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for not making a big deal out of his show of, to his mind, weakness. It was all right for his best friend to see him laughing, but for a complete stranger . . . it was simply unacceptable.  
  
"Are you available to show Professor Farrell around?" Dumbledore asked.  
  
"Yes."   
  
"You might want to show her her office and apartments, as well. Her baggage has already been taken up there."  
  
"Anything else?" Snape asked in a irritated tone.  
  
"Oh. And if you have time before supper, you might cover some of the grounds outside. The stables, the lake, things like that."  
  
Snape sighed. "All right."  
  
"Have a nice afternoon," Dumbledore smiled at Alex as he left the room.  
  
"Look," Alex said. "You don't have to give me a tour. Just tell me how to find my apartments, and how to get back down for supper, and I'll leave you to your . . ." She gestured vaguely in the direction of the book that Snape had been reading.  
  
"Nonsense." Snape assured her. "Albus has entrusted you to me for the afternoon, and I will fulfill that responsibility."  
  
Alex wondered if he seriously was that pompous, or if he had a stilted manner for another reason. Nervousness, perhaps? "Well, if you're sure . . ."  
  
"Yes, I am sure. Now, if you'll accompany me. . ." Snape stood and led Alex out into the hallway.  
  
They stepped into the hallway and Snape indicated a bend farther down the corridor. "That way leads to my apartments. My classroom is over here." He indicated with a nod of his head as they walked towards the stairs that led back up to the main floor.  
  
He led her through the main hallway, pointing out the Great Hall as they passed it. "This is where we eat our meals."  
  
Alex stuck her head in, but barely got a chance to look around before Snape had mounted the steps leading up to the second floor.  
  
He led her up another flight of stairs, then down a long corridor lined with paintings. They stopped at one of a woman in a red dress holding a pair of spectacles on a long stick. "Your apartments are behind this portrait." He informed her.  
  
"*Behind* it?"  
  
"Yes. You say the password to the portrait, and she'll let you through."  
  
"Hello." Alex said to the woman in the portrait.  
  
"You're the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, then?" The portrait responded.  
  
"Yes. Alex Farrell."   
  
"Welcome to Hogwarts, dear."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"The password is 'everlasting gobstoppers.'" At Alex's expression of surprise, he said, "One of Albus's passwords. In order to change it, you say the password, then give your name, then the new password - twice."  
  
Alex walked through the steps in her head. "Do I give my name as Alex Farrell or Alexandra Farrell?"  
  
"Since you introduced yourself to me as Alex Farrell, Alex will suffice." The portrait told her.  
  
"Oh. Thank you again."  
  
"Would you like to see your apartments?" Snape asked.  
  
Alex shook her head. "No. I suspect I'll have plenty of time to spend in there over the next year. I'd much rather continue the tour."  
  
As they continued down the hallway, Alex said, "I probably should get into Hogsmeade again tomorrow to see if I can find some yarn or a compass or something to help me find my way around here."  
  
"Many of the first years purchase a three-dimensional compass to help them out until they get the lay of the land. Very useful. I think you can get them in Hogsmeade."  
  
"I shall have to go into town and get one, then."  
  
"Would you like an escort?"  
  
"No, thank you. I'll be fine."  
  
"Are you certain?" Snape asked. "Some sections of Hogsmeade can be rather . . ."  
  
Her mouth tightened. "Professor Snape, I will be fine. If you'll recall, I was a member of law enforcement before I attended wizarding school. I learned a few things about self-defense in those years."  
  
Snape sighed. "If you insist."  
  
"I do."  
  
They continued walking. "Your classroom will be here." He indicated the room on the right-hand side of the corridor.  
  
Alex illuminated the room as she stepped into it. Other than the usual classroom equipment such as blackboard and desks, the room was empty. "Hmm. It's rather . . . bare. I guess I'll have to get some posters and such. You know, physical and magical weak points on the human body. That sort of thing."  
  
They stepped back into the hallway and Snape turned back the way they had originally come.   
  
"What's that way?" Alex pointed farther into the castle.  
  
Snape shrugged. "Other faculty apartments, more classrooms, the Astronomy Tower . . ."  
  
"Astronomy Tower? I'll bet you can get a wonderful view of the surrounding countryside from up there!" Alex dashed off in that direction, leaving Snape to follow in her wake.  
  
Once she'd reached the top of the Astronomy Tower, Alex finally stopped. "Oh!" She sighed. "You can see Hogsmeade from here!"   
  
She turned and smiled at Snape, who merely pursed his lips and walked to the edge where Alex stood. He looked off into the distance, seeing the village, just as Alex had said. He looked at her and nodded.  
  
Snape's silence made Alex a little nervous, so she started babbling. "I know you probably can't get beautiful views like this all year - it's probably too overcast a lot of the time, but I just *know* I'm going to come up here often, just to get away from it all."  
  
Snape and Alex stood in the top room of the Astronomy Tower for a few minutes, both enjoying the view, even if Snape didn't admit to it aloud. Then, as if by mutual agreement, they both turned and began their descent.   
  
As they left the building, Snape took Alex past the hospital wing, explaining to her that, if she followed in the footsteps of her predecessors, at least one student would end up in the hospital wing through the course of the year. Probably more like one per month, truthfully.   
  
They stepped out onto the front steps of the castle, both squinting after the comparative darkness of the castle.   
  
Snape forcibly kept his commentary to a minimum. Here are the greenhouses where Professor Sprout holds Herbology classes; here are the stables; this is the hut where our gamekeeper Hagrid lives; this is the lake - be careful here, it's deeper than it looks; this is the rose garden.  
  
As they passed the rose garden, one of the ewer-plants ruptured. Alex saw it happen, and grabbed Snape's arm, stopping him from stepping into the stream of corrosive liquid that issued forth from the bowl. The hem of his robe was doused with acid, but he was otherwise unharmed.   
  
"Thank you," he said sincerely as smoke curled from the bottom of his robe. "If I'd been closer to that plant when that happened, it could have been very nasty indeed."  
  
"You're welcome. It looks like you'll need to change your robe before supper. Are you all right otherwise?"  
  
He shook his head dismissively. "I'm fine. And my wardrobe's been through worse. I am Potions Master after all."  
  
"Are you sure? I can take you by the hospital wing if you'd like to get checked out."  
  
"I'm. Fine."   
  
The finality of Snape's tone made Alex take an involuntary step backwards. "All right. I'm sorry."  
  
Snape sniffed and realized that he was giving off a smell of burning wool and the unpleasant aroma of ewer-plant acid. "I suppose I probably should change before supper, though." He admitted. "Let's head back to the castle."  
  
Alex nodded. "I need to get cleaned up before meeting the rest of the staff this evening anyhow. I will admit to being a little nervous about meeting everyone else."  
  
"Don't be." Snape allowed himself a small smile. "They're only human. Well, most of them are . . " He added as an afterthought.  
  
Alex wasn't sure this was a comforting thought.   
  
They walked back to the castle, to the top of the stairs that led to the dungeons.   
  
"Thank you for the tour. See you at supper." She turned to leave.  
  
"Professor Farrell?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"You're welcome." 


	3. Supper

Title: Atonement, Chapter 3 - Supper   
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13   
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. All I own is Alex Farrell.  
  
============= 

After he and Alex parted ways, Snape went immediately to his apartments. Severus Snape's apartments weren't at all dark, or dank, or depressing.   
  
He'd been putting on a forbidding front for his students and the other faculty for so long that no-one except Dumbledore ever bothered to find out what Snape's apartments were like, and Snape liked it that way. His apartments were his retreat, a place he could go to hide from the problems of the outside world.  
  
A large red-and-blue Persian rug covered the floor of his living area, and one large, comfortable chair, upholstered in the same shade of blue as the rug, complete with matching ottoman, sat beneath a hanging lantern. A stack of books lay on the floor next to the chair. Most of them were spellbooks and potion books, but lying on top of the stack was the novel that Snape was currently reading.  
  
He glanced at the clock. The hand that gave his location was pointing to "home" and the hand that indicated where he should be was moving from "office" to "eating," indicating that he had about five minutes before he had to get to the Great Hall. Casting a regretful glance at the still-unfinished novel, he moved on to his bedroom.  
  
There were two pieces of furniture in Snape's bedroom. On one side of the room was a one-person bed with black sheets. A green-and-silver bedspread spilled off the bed and pooled on the floor beside it. On this bed was one of Snape's darkest secrets - a Muggle pillow-top mattress, complete with box-spring. Several years earlier, his back started bothering him, and Madam Pomfrey recommended a Muggle mattress set to replace the feather mattress he had been using. That mattress set had been one of the best purchases Snape had ever made.  
  
Against the wall on the other side of the room was a large wardrobe. Snape took off his damaged robe and left it in a pile on the floor. Then he took another black wool robe from his wardrobe, completely indistinguishable from the one he'd just taken off, except for the lack of acid damage to the hem, and put it on.  
  
He sniffed. _Surely that's not . . ._ He sniffed again, wrinkling his nose. _Yes, it is. I still smell like burnt wool._ Swearing, he took the robe back off and headed to the shower.  
  
Meanwhile, Alex was visiting her own apartments for the first time. She'd been told that Alastor Moody had kept spartan living quarters, but she hadn't really absorbed what that meant until after she'd seen what he'd left behind.  
  
Her first thought upon opening the door was, simply, _Beige._ She'd expected the greenish-beige of the stone walls, of course. What she hadn't expected was the beige armchair, or the beige sofa beneath the only window in the room, both of which were covered in a rough fabric that looked like burlap.   
  
She moved her trunk into the bedroom, and saw that Moody had left a tiny bed, hardly more than an Army cot, behind. She sighed and opened the trunk, moving her robes from it to her wardrobe. Several of the robes were the black robes recommended in her welcome letter, but the rest were for everyday wear, and were in the colors she favored. Mossy green, sky blue, and misty gray predominated as she moved to the next section of her wardrobe - her Muggle clothes. She kept an assortment of jeans, T-shirts and sweaters on hand for visits home.  
  
_Speaking of visits home,_ she sighed, _I'm going to have to get some of my personal things to brighten this place up a bit. Maybe I can Apparate home from Hogsmeade while I'm shopping tomorrow._  
  
She then walked into the nicely-appointed bathroom, thinking _apparently, Moody never got around to eviscerating this room before the end of the year,_ and hastily washed up before changing into her favorite blue robe, which she cinched shut with a wide blue belt, and heading down to supper.  
  
There were no doubts about finding her way around the castle this time, since all she had to do was follow the sounds of the other faculty members' voices to locate the Great Hall.  
  
She stood in the doorway for a minute, looking around for a familiar face, but she didn't see Snape anywhere. However, Dumbledore saw her.   
  
"Professor Farrell!" He called out as he crossed the room. "Come in and I'll introduce you around."  
  
The room became silent, then, and Dumbledore spoke, his voice echoing from the rafters. "This is Professor Alexandra Farrell. The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. She has *just* graduated from Cabot Academy, in the States, and worked in law enforcement for five years before attending wizarding school."  
  
Murmurs of approval and curiosity moved across the room as Dumbledore took Alex to one side to introduce her to McGonagall.  
  
"Minerva McGonagall, this is Alexandra Farrell. Minerva is Assistant Headmistress and Transfiguration teacher. She's also head of Gryffindor House."  
  
Alex looked up into the eyes of the tall assistant principal. "Pleased to meet you."  
  
"And you. So, you went to wizarding school as a returning adult?"   
  
"Yes, ma'am. I," she blushed, "threw away my acceptance letter to Hogwarts. I thought it was all some kind of bizarre practical joke."  
  
McGonagall nodded. "That happens more than you'd think. One of the hazards of keeping our existence hidden."  
  
Dumbledore didn't allow much time for discussion, for soon he was on to the next faculty member. "Sybill Trelawney, Alex Farrell."  
  
Alex had been nervous about wearing a colored robe to dinner, but the sight of Professor Trelawney banished those misgivings. Compared to the swirling, iridescent fabric of Trelawney's robe, her own blue robe looked positively inconspicuous.   
  
"Sybill's our divination teacher," Dumbledore informed Alex.  
  
"Oh." Trelawney moaned. "I don't like the look of your aura at all." She clucked her tongue and sighed. "I'm afraid you're not going to live much longer . . . ."  
  
"Right. Thank you, Sybill." Dumbledore didn't allow any argument, he simply guided Alex along to the next faculty member.  
  
He glanced at Alex, seeing her pallor and wide-eyed expression. "Don't let her worry you. She's always predicting someone's death."  
  
"And is she ever right?"   
  
"Once, she was. But that's a long story. Let's just say that she's only made three correct predictions in her life and leave it at that. Her talent lies in recognizing students with the gift. She's remarkably accurate in that regard."   
  
By then, Dumbledore had moved on to the next introduction. "Alexandra Farrell, this is Rubeus Hagrid, Gamekeeper and Care of Magical Creatures instructor," He indicated a very, very tall man who wasn't dressed in wizards' robes at all, but instead who wore black pants and a brown shirt which laced up the front.  
  
Alex's eyes widened. "Perhaps you're the person I need to speak to about something that happened earlier today."  
  
Dumbledore's attention was caught by something on the other side of the room and he walked away from Alex and Hagrid.  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Those ewer-plants in the rose garden seem a little . . . dangerous."  
  
"Dangerous? They're not dangerous at all!" He assured her.  
  
"Well, one of them ruptured, and someone was almost injured."  
  
Hagrid's eyes widened. "Ruptured, you say? That's not supposed to happen."  
  
"Well, it did."  
  
"Flora!" Hagrid called out across the room, and a short witch in the standard black robes waddled up to him.  
  
"Flora Sprout, Alex Farrell. Professor Sprout's our Herbology teacher." Hagrid introduced them briefly. "Professor Farrell here says that one of the ewer-plants ruptured this afternoon."  
  
Sprout's eyes widened. "Oh, my! Did the acid hit anyone?"  
  
"No." Alex answered. "Well, his robe, not his skin."  
  
Sprout breathed a sigh of relief. "That's good. I wouldn't like to have seen what would've happened if it had touched his skin."  
  
Hagrid was deep in thought. "But what would have made it break? Some of those plants have been there for near to fifty years by now, and we've never had a problem like that."   
  
Sprout shrugged. "Looks like something we'll have to investigate in the morning."  
  
After Snape had completed his shower, he ran his wand over his hair to straighten it, but immediately was overcome by the same doubts he always had. His hair had been unmanageable during his youth, so he had started slicking it down with a potion that made it behave. It was greasy, admittedly, but he had always felt that it was far better that than having it stick up all over the place. He poured a dollop of the liquid onto his hair, which promptly straightened out and lay perfectly flat, as if he'd run over it with an iron.   
  
_Much better._ He sighed at his reflection as he pulled a clean pair of braies from his wardrobe and put on a clean black robe. He looked back in the mirror, running a hand over his chin, wondering if he should shave before he headed down.  
  
"Severus," the mirror told him, "you're ten minutes late for dinner already. You look fine."  
  
_I guess it'll have to do._ Snape ran his hand through his hair one more time, wiping the potion off his palm onto his robe, and then headed off to the Great Hall.  
  
When he arrived at the Great Hall, he stood in the doorway for a moment. No-one was sitting, and Snape realized that Dumbledore must have introduced Alex to the rest of the staff. She was happily talking to Hagrid and Sprout, and Snape was certain that she'd never notice him, so he stepped into the room and began to skirt around the crowd, heading for the table. _After all,_ he reasoned, _the rest of them've got to stop socializing to eat sometime._  
  
As Hagrid and Sprout discussed how to handle the ewer-plant situation, Alex looked around the room at the rest of the faculty she hadn't met yet. Then she saw a friendly face, or at least, a familiar one. It was Snape, who was walking around the outside edge of the room, apparently headed for the table. She wished she felt comfortable shouting across the room to him, but instead she watched him as he continued walking, never meeting anyone else's eyes.  
  
Then, almost as if she *had* shouted his name across the room, he looked directly at her. She smiled and waved a little in his direction, and if she wasn't mistaken, the corners of his mouth turned up - just a little - in response to her smile.  
  
"Would you two excuse me for a moment?" She said to Hagrid and Sprout and walked across the room towards Snape.  
  
Snape was bustling across the room as quickly as possible, not meeting anyone's eyes, when he felt someone watching him. He looked up to find Alex looking across the room at him. She raised her left hand in a hesitant wave and smiled at him. Smiled at him! He was at a complete loss. _She must be smiling at someone else._ He reasoned. _There's a room full of other people. She must be smiling at one of the others._ Nevertheless, he felt the corners of his mouth turn up slightly in response.  
  
Her smile broadened and after speaking to Hagrid and Sprout again, she began walking across the room towards him. Towards *him*!  
  
His eyes widened in astonishment as she came to a halt in front of him. "Hi," She said with another genuine smile.   
  
"Good evening."   
  
"Professor Hagrid, Professor Sprout and I were just talking about you."  
  
Snape's heart plummeted into his abdomen. "Oh. You were?"   
  
"Yes. I told them about your run-in with the ewer-plant. I've been worried about you."  
  
His heart lifted slightly. "You have?"  
  
But then it dropped again when she said, "I'd be worried about anyone who'd come that close to the kind of danger that Professor Sprout seemed to indicate you were in."  
  
"Oh. Well, as you can see, I'm fine." He turned to continue walking towards his usual seat off to one side of the faculty table.   
  
"All right, everyone." Dumbledore's voice projected above the babble.  
  
The faculty immediately grew quiet.  
  
"Now that we're all here, let's take our seats and get started on supper."  
  
Snape sat down in his usual seat, and soon was joined by Alex. "Do you mind if I sit here?" She indicated the spot just to Snape's right.   
  
Snape sat up slightly. "Not at all."   
  
Alex sat down, looking around. "I don't see any food. I certainly hope that this 'supper' includes food somehow."  
  
Snape couldn't help chuckling. "The house-elves down in the kitchen send it up using something akin to Apparation."  
  
"House-elves? Shouldn't they more properly be called 'castle-elves,' or perhaps 'school-elves'?" Alex asked with a grin.  
  
"You know, that's an excellent question. I suppose that a family that lives in a flat would have flat-elves, then?"  
  
"Sounds painful for the elves." At Snape's confused expression, she elaborated. "Being flattened, I mean."  
  
Snape groaned in amused pain at her joke. "Oh, one word of warning. The house-elves are experimenting."  
  
"Experimenting?"  
  
Snape nodded. "I think they've joined the _Muggle-Cookbook-of-the-Month Club_ or something. Over Christmas break last year, we had Mexican, Italian and Chinese, with an even wider array of recipes this break. Who knows what they're going to try out on us tonight?"  
  
The food popped into place on the table, then, and Alex could hear grumbling all up and down the faculty table.   
  
"How can they complain?" She asked. "They haven't even seen what it is yet."  
  
"You haven't seen some of the things they've tried this year."  
  
Alex gingerly lifted the lid from one of the serving dishes and found it to be a kind of vegetable-and-pasta casserole. "Smells good." She said, spooning a little onto her plate.   
  
The other dishes proved to be the same. Some had cheese, others pasta, still others both cheese and pasta, but they all had one thing in common. "No meat." She grinned at Snape. "Obviously, this has all come from a vegetarian cookbook."  
  
They finished their meal in companionable silence. Then, bidding each other good-night, headed off to their respective apartments for the night.  
  
============  
  
A/N: Some of you have asked if we'll see Harry and Draco in this story. Short Answer: Yes. Longer Answer: Yes, but not just yet. Longest Answer: Yes. They're going to make at least one appearance during the school year when they come for a visit, and in the final chapter or so, we'll be with Snape as he attends their wedding. But either one's a long way off yet.  
  
Also, I know that Trelawney's only had two correct predictions. But since the time between GoF and SST was an eventful period, I figured that if she could very well have had *one* more correct prediction in that time. 


	4. Investigations

Title: Atonement, Chapter 4 -- Investigations  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13   
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. All I own is Alex Farrell.  
  
=============  
  
Snape dreamed. It had been a long time since he'd had this particular dream, and thankfully, it was mostly sense impressions.  
  
Flickering orange firelight casting eerie shadows on the wall.  
  
The sounds of his 'brothers' chanting.  
  
Blasts of heat as the fire was stoked higher.  
  
Her eyes, brown and loving, knowing what he was going to do, and forgiving him for it . . .  
  
He woke up, her name on his lips, his heart pounding. He turned over and tried to go back to sleep, but had no luck. It was difficult to sleep when you had just relived your darkest hour.  
  
He got up and moved to the living room, but was far too keyed up to get involved in his novel, so he picked up his notebook and Ever-Ink Quill went for a walk instead. It had been a long time since he'd visited the centaurs.  
  
Alex spent part of the night trying unsuccessfully to get comfortable on the Army cot-style bed in her bedroom. Then she moved to her sofa but found it to be uncomfortable as well.   
  
Finally, sighing, she got up and put her blue robe back on and headed for the Astronomy Tower. It was a warm night and she yawned and stretched, then sat down on the railing, looking down at the ground in the shadow of the castle.  
  
A figure darted out through the front doors of the castle, moving determinedly towards the Forbidden Forest. The man, she was sure it was a man and not a woman, looked neither left nor right. As if he'd done this a million times before, he simply stepped into the forest, no hesitation showing in his step.  
  
She continued staring for a moment, wondering if she'd seen correctly. If she hadn't been mistaken, the man she'd just seen walking into the Forbidden Forest was Severus Snape.  
  
As soon as he'd reached the concealing shelter of the Forest, a centaur came forward.   
  
"I'm here under the protection of Salazar Slytherin to speak with Rhetor." It wasn't quite an accurate translation, they had told him the first time he'd come for a visit, more a transliteration - the words were correct, but the sense was a little off. In fact, he doubted that 'Rhetor' was the centaur's name at all, being the Latin word for an orator.  
  
The centaur nodded silently, walking quietly deeper into the woods.  
  
Soon, the centaur that Snape knew as 'Rhetor' walked into the clearing. Snape had upon occasion passed the night talking to Rhetor about the centaurs' memory of Salazar Slytherin. Snape had known there had to be more to Slytherin than was recorded in human memory, and according to the centaurs, he was right.  
  
"It has been a long time, Severus Snape," the centaur, handsome, with a strong jawline and curling auburn hair and beard, said.  
  
"Right. Well, ah, I've been busy." Snape stammered.  
  
The centaur smiled. "I did not say it was a good thing or a bad thing, Severus Snape. Just that it was." He gracefully folded himself to the ground. "Would you like to have a seat, Severus Snape?"  
  
"Thank you." Snape sat on the ground across the clearing from the centaur, with considerably less grace than the centaur had.  
  
He heard a rustling in the leaves behind him, and the centaur looked up sharply. He looked directly at something that Snape couldn't see, and then back down at Snape.  
  
"Now, we were talking about Salazar Slytherin, as I recall . . ."  
  
_I can't believe that I'm letting my curiosity get me this carried away._ Alex thought as she walked down the steps of the school and out the front door. _Who'm I kidding? I've always been nosy._ She walked in the direction of the Forbidden Forest. _I just hope that Severus is safe._  
  
As she stepped beyond the boundary of the Forest, the atmosphere changed. Suddenly, the sounds of the nighttime birds and insects stopped. The only sound was voices just a few feet over, if she could only see . . .  
  
She moved closer to the sound of the voices, and as her eyes adjusted to the darkness under the trees, she could see Snape, sitting on the ground, across the clearing from a centaur. She gasped, and the centaur looked up, making eye contact with her.   
  
She fled.  
  
The next morning, she wanted to ask Snape why he'd been in the Forbidden Forest conferring with the centaur, but she also didn't want him to think she was snooping. On the other hand, she knew that Snape was the kind of man who didn't give his trust freely, and she could tell that if she wanted to earn it, keeping secrets from him was not the best way to go about it.  
  
Since she didn't want to go to breakfast until after she'd made her decision, she debated both sides of the argument with herself as she paced around the lake. She looked up and saw Hagrid and Sprout examining the ewer-plant that had burst the previous day.  
  
She walked over to them. "So?" She asked. "What happened?"  
  
Sprout spoke first. "We don't know." She admitted. "But it looks intentional."  
  
Alex felt the blood drain from her hands and feet. "Intentional? Like someone *tried* to make it rupture?"  
  
Sprout nodded. "Whoever did it might have scored it with a knife hoping it would split later, or could have used something like the _laceratio_ hex on it as you walked past. We won't know for sure until we've done some tests on it."  
  
Hagrid had cut off the damaged flower and was packing it into a metal box. "This will hold it until we can find out what happened to it."  
  
Alex walked to breakfast as if she was in a trance, where she sat down next to Snape.  
  
"Good morning. Did you sleep well?" He asked.  
  
She shook her head, distracted. "I didn't sleep at all."   
  
"Oh. I'm sorry. I had a touch of insomnia myself."  
  
This would have been Alex's opening to tell him that she'd seen him with the centaur, but it never occurred to her. All of her police training drained out of her as well, since she'd never been friendly with a victim of a crime she was investigating before. "It was sabotage."  
  
"What was sabotage?" He raised his fork to his lips.  
  
"The ewer-plant. Yesterday."  
  
Snape's fork froze near his mouth, scrambled eggs dribbling from it. "Sabotage? You're sure?"  
  
She nodded. "Yes. Well, Hagrid and Sprout seem to be. They've taken the flower and are going to examine it to see what they can determine."  
  
By now, Snape's fork was empty, and his lap was sprinkled with bits of egg. He noticed this and put the fork down, starting to pick at the eggs on his lap, but his hands were shaking too badly to accomplish much. Finally, frustrated, he grabbed a handful of the fabric and gave it a vigorous shake, spraying bits of egg all over the table, the floor, and Alex. "Sorry." He mumbled, glancing up at her.  
  
"That's all right. It was pretty disturbing news." She smiled at him gently.   
  
"Say," she said in a jovial tone that very nearly didn't sound forced, "I'm going in to Hogsmeade today to do some shopping. You're welcome to join me."  
  
For a brief moment, Alex thought he would accept. Instead, he shook his head. "I can't. I've got a lot of work to do . . ."  
  
"Planning new ways to torment Gryffindors?" She grinned at him.  
  
He gave her a genuine, yet watery, smile in return. "Yes. That sort of thing. Drink a butterbeer for me, though."  
  
He stood and left the table without another word.  
  
As soon as he walked out of the Great Hall, he leaned against the wall to support him. _Oh, my God._ He thought, feeling himself start to hyperventilate. _I was nearly killed yesterday. On purpose. Could someone be trying to kill me?_  
  
This news, on top of his nightmare the night before, left him shaking. He went up to Dumbledore's office.  
  
"You look like hell this morning, Severus." Dumbledore cheerfully informed his friend as Snape plopped down in one of the guest chairs.  
  
"Thank you." Snape said sarcastically as he took a pastry from the plate on Dumbledore's desk.   
  
"You were out working on your Salazar Slytherin book last night, I take it?"  
  
Once again, Snape stopped with his food nearly up to his mouth. "That was you I heard last night in the Forest?"  
  
Dumbledore shook his head. "No. I looked out my window and saw you coming back from the Forest this morning."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Someone was following you last night? That's not good."  
  
"I know it isn't." Snape snapped. "And then this morning, Professor Farrell tells me that Hagrid and Flora think that my run-in with the ewer-plants was intentional. It's very probable that someone is trying to kill me."  
  
Someone else knocked on Dumbledore's door then.   
  
"Come in!" Dumbledore called out and the door opened to admit Alex.   
  
"Oh. I didn't realize. . . I'll come back later." She turned to leave, but Snape interrupted her.  
  
"Don't leave. I was just going anyhow." Snape stood and walked to the door.   
  
"Severus?" Dumbledore called out.  
  
"Yes?"   
  
"I'm sure that Flora will figure out exactly what happened. She is a Hufflepuff, after all, and once they start on a task, they don't stop until it's done."  
  
"I know. Thanks." With that, Snape left the room.  
  
"So," Dumbledore turned his attention to Alex. "What did you need?"  
  
Alex looked sheepish. "I know it's nothing compared to finding out what happened to Professor Snape," she admitted, "but I was wondering if I could have some different furniture put in my apartments?"  
  
"Filch didn't change out your furniture?" Dumbledore snapped.  
  
"I guess not. Unless burlap furniture and Army cots are standard issue for your teachers." She responded wryly.  
  
"I'll get Filch right on that. You'll have more appropriate furniture by lunchtime. Is there anything specific you would like? Two-person-sized bed? Upholstery in any specific color?"  
  
She shook her head. "No. Whatever you have is fine with me. And it doesn't need to be that soon. I'm going spend the morning in Hogsmeade to purchase a few things. And while I'm there, I may Apparate home to pick up some personal things as well, which will take me probably a little past lunchtime."  
  
"Very well. But I will make sure that Filch puts getting your furniture corrected at the top of his list anyhow."  
/87  
"Thank you, Professor Dumbledore." Alex said as she stood to leave.  
  
"And Alex?"  
  
She paused in the doorway. "Yes?"  
  
"If you have anything to contribute to Flora's investigation of the incident with the ewer-plant, I'm sure she'd be happy to have your input."  
  
"Well, I can't think of anything I'd be able to contribute at this point, but if I do, I'll be sure to let her know."  
  
Snape spent the day wishing he'd taken Alex up on her offer to go into Hogsmeade with her. He'd just gotten some old potion books from a former student, but as he flipped through them, he realized they were written in Goblin, and the last thing he needed that day was the headache of trying to translate a language he wasn't particularly good at when he was on form.  
  
He tried to go for a walk, but only got five feet from the door of the castle before memories of acid gushing onto his robe made him head back inside.   
  
So, he resorted to pacing the hallways. His fifth circuit down the hallway that led past the entrance to the Gryffindor Tower, Nearly-Headless Nick appeared in the corridor in front of him. "Snape?" He asked, "What're you doing here?"  
  
"Not trying to break into your Tower, if that's what you're thinking." Snape snapped.   
  
"That wasn't what I was thinking at all." Nick said in an affronted tone, which only confirmed in Snape's mind that was exactly what Nick had been thinking.  
  
"How do you take it?"  
  
"Take what?" Nick was surprised by Snape's desperate tone.  
  
"Being stuck here. Year after year. I've only been here for a few hours and I'm already going insane."  
  
"Some can't take it." Nick intoned morosely. "Peeves, for example. As for the rest of us . . . We adjust. We have to." He placed a curious accent on the word _We._  
  
Suddenly, Snape realized that being around the Gryffindor house ghost was making him even more depressed. He decided to find out how Sprout's investigation was going.  
  
Alex was having somewhat better luck with her shopping trip. She'd found one of the three-dimensional compasses that Snape had told her about, along with some enchanted parchment that drew a map following your path.   
  
She'd also worn a Muggle t-shirt and jeans under her robe, so she Apparated back to her parents' house, where she'd stored most of her personal belongings to pick up a few of her favorite Muggle art prints and mementos.   
  
She'd left a note to her parents, promising an owl catching them up in the next few days, then Disapparated back to Hogsmeade.  
  
Her belongings all packed into a second trunk that she'd purchased in Hogsmeade, she was about to head back for Hogwarts, when Snape's request that she have a butterbeer for him came back to her.  
  
She headed for the Three Broomsticks, and just as she was about to order her butterbeer, she changed her mind. "Is there any way I could get two butterbeers to go, please?"  
  
"'To go'?" The woman behind the counter asked, clearly confused.  
  
This woman was quickly pushed out of the way by another, who said, "I'll take care of this one, Blossom."   
  
"Yes, Ma'am." The serving maid said as she moved on to help someone else.   
  
"You're a Muggle-born, right?"   
  
"Yes."  
  
"The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, unless I miss my guess."  
  
"Right again." Alex smiled. "Alex Farrell."  
  
"Rosemerta. I own the Three Broomsticks, and fortunately, I've seen a few Muggle-borns in my day." She smiled. "And yes, you can get butterbeers 'to go.'" She said as she went to get Alex's butterbeers, then disappeared into a back room.  
  
She brought the two mugs with some kind of transparent force field across the top to Alex. "You have to drink them within about . . . half an hour of getting back to school, mind." She admonished Alex. "You use _aperte_ to open them."  
  
Alex thanked her and paid her and then, levitating her trunk before her, returned to Hogwarts.  
  
============  
  
A/N: Yes, we will see the results of Snape's research. It will be in a side fic. Once I get it finished. 


	5. Untitled

Title: Atonement, Chapter 5  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13   
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. All I own is Alex Farrell.  
  
=============   
  
Snape went to Sprout's offices, but she wasn't there. "You might try the greenhouses." The portrait in front of Sprout's door informed him. So, he headed for the greenhouses.  
  
Snape paused on the threshold of the castle, anticipation fluttering in his stomach at the idea of exposing himself to whoever had apparently attacked him the previous day. _Well, it's been a nice life._ He took a deep breath to steel himself and stepped outside.  
  
He made it safely down from the entrance to the main path, then to the path that led back towards the greenhouses. _Maybe it is all a mistake,_ he began to think as he gained confidence, _maybe it was just an accident. It's not impossible for a ewer-plant to rupture, just because it's never happened before . . ._  
  
Nevertheless, he was relieved when he reached the greenhouses. He stepped into the first one, where Sprout kept her plant dissection table. "Sprout!" He called out, causing some of the mandrakes to squirm in irritation.  
  
"Shh!" Sprout admonished him as she came back into the room, a small pair of glasses perched on her nose. "I just stepped into the darkroom for a second to try another test. You didn't need to yell."  
  
"So?" He snapped, nerves making him testier than usual. "What have you found out?"  
  
"You should know, Snape," Sprout said calmly, "these tests are a matter of *ex*clusion, not *in*clusion. Once I've eliminated most of the major possibilities, we'll see what we have left."  
  
_Damn Hufflepuffs. 'Hufflepuffs are true and unafraid of toil,'_ he snorted, _What the Sorting Hat *should* say is that Hufflepuffs are so damned detail-oriented, they'd drive anyone insane._ He thought. "So, what have you eliminated so far?"  
  
"Well, I've conclusively eliminated any kind of natural aging or deterioration process." Sprout paused as she looked at her sheets of notes.  
  
"And? Is that all? All this time, and you've only determined that the ewer-plant didn't naturally rupture? We knew that from the beginning!"  
  
Sprout took the glasses off and held them up to inspect them, wiping at a spot. "I'm not a first-year that you can intimidate, Snape. Yes, that's all I have been able to determine. These things take time. You will know what I find out once I've found it out."  
  
He stared at her.  
  
"Do you have anything else to ask, Snape?"  
  
His lips tightened. "No. That will do. Thank you." He said tersely as he walked out of the greenhouse.  
  
_I can't believe that . . ._ Snape fumed as he walked back towards the castle. _Three hours, and all she can show is . . ._   
  
"Professor Snape!" He heard a woman's voice call out.  
  
He looked and saw Alex walking towards him, a trunk levitating in front of her. He waited for her to catch up to him and they walked into the castle together. "I took your advice." She told him, her voice ringing in the entryway.  
  
"Oh?" He was confused, then remembered. "Oh! About the butterbeer!"  
  
She nodded, suddenly a little nervous. "Only . . . I took the liberty of," she paused, "bringing one to you. It's in the trunk. They're in the trunk, actually. I brought mine with me, too.  
  
"We're almost up to my apartments, so I'll just drop this in there and then you can have your butterbeer?"  
  
He nodded silently.  
  
They walked the rest of the way to Alex's apartments in silence, and then she dropped off her trunk, opening it up and taking out the butterbeers. She looked around. "Much better." She sighed, looking at the assortment of furniture that had been moved in while she was in Hogsmeade. "Alastor Moody's furniture was still here when I moved in."  
  
Snape's eyes widened as he took one of the butterbeers from her. "I can't imagine . . .."  
  
"It wasn't that bad. Uncomfortable, but not masochistic or anything." She responded with a smile.  
  
Snape left the room with his butterbeer, and Alex followed him. He looked at her curiously, wondering why she was leaving her apartments.   
  
"I'm not ready to be cooped up inside yet. I figured I'd take this up to the Astronomy tower. You're welcome to join me." She offered, fully expecting him to refuse.   
  
She was surprised when he said, "I think I'd like that."  
  
Together, they walked the rest of the way to the Astronomy Tower, Alex babbling about the purchases she'd made in Hogsmeade. Finally, they reached the open room at the top of the Tower.   
  
Snape put his butterbeer down, tapping it with his wand. "_Aperte!_" he called out softly, and with a soft, sucking sound, the seal disappeared.  
  
Alex stood by holding her wand nervously in her hand. Snape looked curiously from Alex to the still-sealed mug. "Would you like me to . . .?"  
  
She looked at him, relief in her eyes. "Would you?"  
  
Snape nodded. "_Aperte!_" he repeated, and the seal disappeared from Alex's mug as well.  
  
They sat down on the floor of the room, which left just the tops of their heads above the wall around it, so the wind wiffled through Alex's hair as they sat there, sipping at their butterbeers.   
  
"It's good to see that you're not letting fear keep you indoors. Too many crime victims do that." Alex said.  
  
Snape's eyes widened as he swallowed a gulp of his drink. "Actually, I did. For most of the day. But I needed to find out what, if anything, Sprout had figured out about the ewer-plant."  
  
"And?"  
  
He snorted. "Nothing. All she'd been able to find out was that it *wasn't* natural."  
  
"That's not bad. Eliminating all of the possible natural causes in only," she checked her watch, mentally calculating the amount of time between _breakfast_ and _Astronomy Tower._ "Three hours."  
  
"'Only'?" he quoted back to her.  
  
"What? You were expecting a faster turnaround time from forensics?" She laughed. "I could tell you stories that'd turn your hair white. In one gunshot case we worked on, they spent three hours trying to figure out what the gloves the shooter'd been wearing were made of.  
  
"I wouldn't expect anything definite from her earlier than noon tomorrow."  
  
She paused. "Professor Snape?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I wanted to talk to you about something this morning, but the whole ewer-plant investigation just knocked it right from my mind."  
  
He switched position slightly. "Oh?"  
  
"I was up here last night, while I couldn't sleep, and I saw you coming out of the castle. And I followed you."  
  
She could see suspicion in his eyes. "Why'd you do that?"  
  
She shrugged. "I couldn't sleep." Knowing that wasn't the whole reason, she continued. "And I used to be a police officer. I'm just sort of nosy that way."  
  
This is what she'd feared. That whatever it was that had made him so mistrustful would make him angry at her when she told him. "And so you chose to skulk around in the darkness, not even letting me know you were there?" He yelled.  
  
Instinct taking over, she yelled back. "By the time I got downstairs, you'd disappeared. I couldn't very well walk off into the Forest yelling, 'Oi! Snape! Where are you?' now, could I?"  
  
"So what did you do instead?" He snapped.  
  
"I walked to the edge of the Forest, and I could hear your voice, so I followed it."  
  
"And then what happened?" He asked without inflection.  
  
"I saw you. Talking. With a centaur." Then she pushed the rest out in a rush. "And he saw me, and looked right. At. Me. And I heard a voice in my head telling me to leave, because *you* wouldn't like to know that I'd followed you."  
  
"So you left?"  
  
She nodded.  
  
"Because you didn't want me to be angry with you for following me."  
  
"Right."  
  
"Then why are you telling me this?"  
  
"Because I need to tell you the truth." She said simply.  
  
He was silent for a long time, then, and when he picked up the butterbeer mug, she thought that he was going to walk away and she'd lose the closest thing to a friend she'd found so far at Hogwarts. Instead, though, he took a sip and put it back down.   
  
"You know." He said. "I wish I'd been able to do what was right simply because it was right. My life would have been a whole lot simpler." He didn't add what was in his mind, which was that he wouldn't be sitting in the Astronomy Tower drinking butterbeer with the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in that other, simpler, life. He'd be living a quiet life in the country, married to his first love, in that other life.  
  
But his nightmare of the night before reminded him of the things he'd done in spite of the fact that they were wrong, so he broke his silence again. "And some of the things I've done in my life would, as you put it, turn your hair white. So I can't very well hold you following me against you, either." He sipped his butterbeer again with an air of finality, as if his speech solved everything.  
  
Alex watched him uneasily for a while, then, but he seemed to be true to his word that he wasn't holding it against her.  
  
"So," he said after another pull on his butterbeer, "what else did you do while you were in Hogsmeade?"  
  
Soon after they'd finished their butterbeers, they parted, and Alex went to start putting her apartments together. Realizing that she didn't have a hammer and nails, she forewent the Muggle way of attaching her art prints to the wall in favor of using a gluing spell she'd learned in wizarding school.  
  
She also put out a frame with the first wizarding photograph she'd ever made - of her parents and her best friend from wizarding school. They smiled and waved at her as she placed it on the mantel above the fireplace.  
  
She laid an afghan her aunt had crocheted for her on the end of the bed - which was easily big enough for two people, and put a throw pillow needlepointed by her mother at the head of the bed.  
  
She took out a selection of her favorite Muggle novels from her trunk and set them up on the mantel next to the photo of her parents. Then she selected one, and moved to the overstuffed couch that Filch had put under her window to read until it was time to get ready for supper.  
  
Snape left the Astronomy Tower and went directly to his office in the dungeons. He picked up the potions book he'd been paging through the night before, continuing his search for a sleeping draught. _I need this more than ever now,_ he thought, _why, suddenly, is this all coming back to me? Why am I remembering her? Why now?_   
  
He lost track of time as he frantically searched for something, anything, that would give him a night's peaceful sleep, to help him hold those memories at bay.   
  
Then he found it. He read it through once, twice, exultation running through his veins. He laughed, slightly manically, as he heard someone behind him clearing their throat.  
  
He turned and saw Alex standing in the doorway behind him. He nearly dropped the tome. "Professor Farrell! What brings you here?"  
  
"Professor Dumbledore and I thought you might like to come up for supper, but I'll leave you alone if you want."  
  
"Is it that time already?" His gaze was still somewhat unfocused. "Of course I'd like some supper. I just lost track of time searching for something." Without looking at what he was grabbing, he stuffed a sheet of parchment into the potion book and went up to supper.  
  
=========  
  
A/N: Before you go telling me that Snape's OOC for just letting go of the whole "Alex followed him in the Forest last night" thing, I already know that. I just wanted to skip several chapters of Snape being angry while he learned to trust Alex again in favor of more time spent on the actual plot. 


	6. Untitled

Title: Atonement, Chapter 6  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13   
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. All I own is Alex Farrell.  
  
=============  
  
After supper, Alex went back to her apartments to work on her lesson plans for the upcoming term, and Snape went back down to his office to begin work on the sleeping draught.  
  
He picked the book up from where he'd left it and carried it into the classroom next door. He opened the book, which was old enough that it held itself open, and began to search for the ingredients for the potion.  
  
It was then that his eyes fell on the writing on the paper he'd used as a bookmark:  
  
_We didn't get you yesterday. But we will._  
  
The flask he was holding slipped from his grasp as those eight words, written in a red as vibrant as fresh blood, slowly faded from the page. He was brought back into the moment by the sound of shattering glass.   
  
_I'll get that tomorrow._ He thought, crunching broken glass underfoot. _For tonight, I *need* that draught._  
  
He continued working on the potion, alternately wishing the note was still there so that he could take it to Dumbledore and Alex and get their input, and infinitely glad that the threatening words had disappeared.  
  
While the mixture simmered, Snape was seized with a sudden wild hope that perhaps the parchment was blank when he used it as a bookmark, and that there was some kind of hex on the book that would write threats on any piece of parchment placed between the leaves.  
  
Once the potion had finished simmering, he needed to let it cool to room temperature. He walked back to his office and got a blank sheet of parchment, which he placed between the leaves of the closed book.  
  
And then he waited.   
  
Finally, the potion was cool enough to drink, so he carried it, the piece of parchment that the note had been written on, and the book, back to his apartments. He mumbled the password and carried it all to his bedroom, setting it on the floor as he changed into his nightshirt and cleaned his teeth.   
  
Then he opened the book again, but to his disappointment the sheet of parchment was still blank. _Which means that the note was authentic, and that someone put a charm on it to erase it once I'd read it. Whoever's trying to kill me is going to try again._  
  
After thoughts like that, he definitely needed a sleeping draught. _Well, let's see if it works as promised._ He thought as he picked up the beaker and threw it back in one gulp.   
  
The last thing he remembered hearing for a long time was the clink of the beaker hitting the floor as the world rapidly faded to black.  
  
When Alex woke up, the dawn had turned the sky a spectrum of pastel shades from pink to periwinkle. She rubbed her eyes and realized that she had books and parchment all over her lap. A quill lay on top of everything, a splotch of ink under the tip. _I closed my eyes for a moment and fell asleep here on the sofa,_ she thought as she yawned and stretched, working the stiffness out of her back. _At least I didn't have insomnia again last night._  
  
She rolled up the length of blank parchment and set it aside, then began to sort through her notes and plans. Her completed lesson plans, she put into one stack, the notes she'd made for other lessons in another. Finally, she closed the books and set the ink-stained sheet of parchment on the floor to dry. _Going to have to rewrite that one, I'm afraid,_ she thought as she surveyed the damage.  
  
She headed for the shower. After her shower, she put on a green robe and went down to breakfast.   
  
When she arrived in the Great Hall, a few faculty members were milling around, though hardly the number who had been there the previous morning. After seeing that Snape wasn't there, she walked over to Sprout. "Is this seat taken?" She asked, indicating the seat to Sprout's right.  
  
"No." Sprout said, and as Alex sat down, she continued speaking. "I suppose you'd like to hear what I've found out so far about the ewer-plant?"  
  
"Good morning to you, too." Alex responded grinning. "And, yes, I'd love an update on the ewer-plant."  
  
Sprout, all business, said, "As Professor Snape may have told you, I have eliminated any possible natural cause of the rupture, so I've started looking at possible means of tampering with the plant. I cannot find any evidence of the plant having been cut or scored or anything physically, so today I'm going to start looking at possible hexes that could have been used to cut the plant."  
  
Alex nodded as her food, an assortment of breads and fresh fruit, appeared on her plate. "And if you can determine which hex was used, will you be able to trace it to the caster?"  
  
"Not directly," Sprout admitted. "We may be able to determine some of the characteristics of the wand used, but since wands can be stolen, even if we could determine which wand, specifically, was used, it still wouldn't be proof of that person's guilt. Especially since we have no evidence that any real harm was intended. I guess we're just going to have to wait and see if anything else comes up."  
  
Alex continued talking to Sprout, her eyes flicking to the door every time someone new walked into the room, but Snape never showed up.  
  
After breakfast, Alex remembered that he'd nearly missed dinner the previous night, so, thinking that he might have gotten wrapped up in his work again, she went down to his office. He didn't answer his office door, and she saw no light coming out from under the door.  
  
Then she noticed the classroom door was open. She stuck her head in, and saw a broken flask on the floor and the remains of his potion-making the night before. She didn't touch anything, but instead, walked farther down the hallway in search of his apartments.   
  
She saw a portrait of a rather haughty-looking woman halfway down the corridor on the right-hand side. "Good morning," she said to it.  
  
"Is it?" The portrait responded in a bored tone. "I hardly notice anymore."  
  
"If I may ask, do you guard the entrance to Severus Snape's apartments?"  
  
The portrait's face suddenly grew suspicious. "Why do you want to know?"  
  
"Because he's missing breakfast, and I wanted to make sure he was all right."  
  
"Oh," the portrait responded, "he misses breakfast all the time. He'll get something to eat if he needs it later."  
  
"Well, if you're sure . . ."  
  
"I am. You don't need to worry your little head about him at all."   
  
Alex bristled at the condescending tone, but kept her own tone neutral. "All right, then. I guess I'll just see him at lunch."  
  
Alex went back to work then. All she still needed to do for the first years' lesson plans, for the first two weeks of the term, at least, was one more lesson plan, and then she started on the second years' lesson plans. This was somewhat more difficult, since she had to refer back to Mad-Eye Moody's notes to see what he'd covered the previous year, and Mad-Eye Moody's notes were interrupted by periodic observations of his magical eye. They read, for example, _Elementary spell-blocking. Tell Snape that Blake cheated on Potions exam._  
  
After the first few lesson plans, Alex was developing a headache. _If this is what I'm going to have to do for the second years, what will I do with the third years, when I have to go through Moody's *and* Lee's notes for the year?_  
  
A few minutes before lunch, she decided to take a study break and see what, if anything, Sprout had discovered about the ewer-plant.  
  
First she headed for Sprout's office, but the Herbology teacher wasn't there. So she went down to the dungeons, to see if Snape had heard anything. "Professor Snape?" She called out as she knocked at his office door. But there was no answer.  
  
The door to the classroom was still open, so she went inside again to find the same disarray she'd found that morning. "Something's not right," she whispered, "Snape just wouldn't leave things like this."  
  
She went back up to the main hallway, where she literally ran into Hagrid. "Sorry, Professor Farrell," the half-giant rumbled.  
  
"No. I'm sorry. I should have been watching where I was going. Have you seen Professor Snape this morning?"  
  
Hagrid shook his head. "No, I haven't."  
  
Worry flashed through Alex's mind, but she didn't know if it was time to panic just yet. "What about Professor Sprout? Do you know what she's discovered about the ewer-plant?"  
  
The worry turned into fear as Hagrid shook his head. "I know she was pretty sure it was intentional, but . . . . Hey! Where are you going?"   
  
"Sorry, Hagrid." She called back. "I've got to see Professor Dumbledore."  
  
After she'd left Hagrid she headed immediately for the gargoyle that guarded Dumbledore's office. "Snickers. Three Musketeers. Butterfingers. Oh, for crying out loud. Please let me in! I've got to see Professor Dumbledore. Cockroach clusters. Spring surprise. Crunchy damned frog!" She babbled.  
  
The gargoyle moved aside and Dumbledore emerged from behind it. He placed his hands on Alex's shoulders. "Professor Farrell." He said calmly. "What's the matter?"  
  
Alex took a deep breath to calm herself. "It's Professor Snape. I can't find him anywhere. He wasn't at breakfast. He's not in his office. The same mess has been in his classroom since before breakfast. And there's that damned portrait outside his apartments. With someone possibly after him, there's a distinct possibility that he's been hurt, possibly even killed."  
  
"All right." Dumbledore projected his calmest exterior. "We'll go down to his apartments and see if he's there. All right?"  
  
Alex nodded and the pair headed for the stairs to the dungeons.  
  
Soon they were standing in front of the portrait who'd been so insulting to Alex earlier. "Please let us in." Dumbledore addressed her.  
  
The portrait simply looked Dumbledore up and down slowly, not even deigning to answer.  
  
"Let us in," Dumbledore threatened calmly, "or you'll be guarding the hallway outside the owlery before suppertime."  
  
With a soft click, the portrait swung open, allowing Dumbledore and Alex admittance into Snape's apartments.  
  
Alex didn't notice the comfortable chair, or the Oriental rug, or even the stack of books on the floor. With a speed born of training and experience in searching for specific objects, she looked for Snape's black hair and sallow skin. Not finding it, she focused her attention on the next room, and there, in the bed, pale as death against the black sheets, was Snape.  
  
Dumbledore was by Snape's side before Alex could make her legs move. He took Snape's hand in his, feeling for a pulse. "He's still alive." He told her. "But I can't tell any more than that. Go to the hospital wing and get Poppy Pomfrey."  
  
No sooner had the words left Dumbledore's mouth than Alex was through the portrait hole and headed for the stairs. 


	7. Untitled

Title: Atonement, Chapter 7   
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13   
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. All I own is Alex Farrell.   
  
=============  
  
Alex hurried through the corridors to the hospital wing, where she was greeted by a round-faced young man she'd never met before. "Is Madam Pomfrey here?"  
  
He nodded. "Just a minute. I'll get her for you." He disappeared into Madam Pomfrey's office and returned with the doctor in tow.   
  
"What can I do for you, Professor Farrell?" She asked.  
  
"It's Professor Snape. Something's happened to him. He's not waking up."  
  
Madam Pomfrey looked at the young man. "Get a stretcher, Neville." When the young man returned with the stretcher, the three hurried down to Snape's apartments.  
  
Dumbledore was exactly where Alex had left him, kneeling by Snape's bedside, feeling his pulse, weak yet even, in his wrist.  
  
As Neville moved the stretcher into position, one of the handles slipped from his grasp, crashing to the floor. "Peeves!" He said sternly, "I don't think the Baron would appreciate it if something happened to the Head of his House, do you?"  
  
Alex made a mental note to ask later what that was about.  
  
"Neville, please put Professor Snape on the stretcher," Madam Pomfrey instructed the boy as she began questioning Dumbledore about Snape's condition.  
  
Alex saw the young man blanch slightly, and she got the impression that Neville was afraid, somehow. Thinking that he was afraid he'd drop the Potions Master, Alex silently moved to Snape's head and indicated for Neville to take his feet. Together, they moved Snape's unconscious form to the stretcher and then picked up the stretcher together.   
  
Under Madam Pomfrey's direction, they carried him up the stairs and off to the hospital wing.  
  
Alex heard Neville breathe an audible sigh of relief as they placed him safely on a bed.  
  
"Are you all right?" She asked as they stepped out of the cubicle to allow Madam Pomfrey to examine the Potions Master.  
  
He nodded. "I just kept getting this image of him waking up and yelling at me for handling him wrong. I wasn't Professor Snape's favorite student." The terror in Neville's eyes belied the simplicity of his tone.  
  
She wasn't sure what to say. "Well, I'm certain that once he wakes up, he'll thank you for your help."   
  
He snorted disbelievingly.  
  
"What was that you said before, down in Professor Snape's apartments? Something about Peeves? Isn't he the poltergeist?"  
  
"He's been making my life difficult ever since I started at Hogwarts." Neville said.   
  
He proceeded to give her the condensed version of how Elnora Longbottom had asked Peeves to make Neville look like he could never be a threat to Voldemort, and how apparently Peeves was still following Neville's mother's request.  
  
"And the Baron?" She asked.  
  
"The Bloody Baron's the Slytherin House ghost. He's the only one around here that Peeves listens to. Since it was the Head of Slytherin House that I was helping . . ."  
  
"You threatened Peeves with retribution from the Baron. Good thinking." She smiled at the young man, who blushed a bright scarlet. "Why are you here during the term break? I thought that all of the students have to go home for this break."  
  
"I'm not a student anymore. I'm just here for a visit. I'm going to be working at a clinic in Hogsmeade this year. If I get the job, that is."  
  
He sighed. "Well, looks like Poppy's going to be busy for a while." Neville said, "I guess I'll go back to my room and get ready for my interview tomorrow."  
  
"Good luck." Alex said as Neville left the room.  
  
She waited for a few minutes, and eventually heard a familiar voice from behind the curtain that separated the waiting area from Snape's cubicle. She stepped quietly into the cubicle.  
  
" . . . must have simmered the potion too long. But I needed the sleep. I'd been dreaming, Albus. Dreaming of . . . Laura." He closed his eyes and a tear leaked down his face.  
  
Knowing she was walking in where she wasn't wanted, Alex stepped silently back out into the waiting area, and kept going, all the way back up to her apartments.   
  
She'd been wading through Moody's notes for another half hour when someone knocked at her door. "Come in!" She called out. The door was opened by a very pale and shaken Snape.  
  
"Hello, Professor Farrell." He smiled at her weakly.  
  
"You shouldn't be out of bed!" She gasped as she led him to an overstuffed chair in her living area.  
  
He shrugged. "There wasn't much they could do for me. It's not like I needed to get any more rest." He joked feebly.  
  
"I just wanted to thank you." He said. "For finding me. I accidentally took too much sleeping draught."  
  
"You're welcome."   
  
"Well, I shouldn't keep you from . . . your lesson plans?"  
  
She nodded. "But before you go, I've got to ask you something. It's about Neville Longbottom."  
  
Fire flashed in Snape's eyes. "What about Longbottom?" He asked.  
  
"I helped him carry you up to the hospital wing. He was terrified of you."  
  
Snape smiled then, a little bitterly. "Remember, I'm one of the most-feared teachers on staff here. And with good reason. I terrify them in first year, and never let up until they've graduated. Longbottom's one of my most spectacular successes."  
  
Alex didn't know what to say, so she said the first thing to come to mind. "He's not a student any longer. If you were to speak to him at supper tonight, perhaps. . ."  
  
Snape interrupted her. "Even if I wanted to mend fences with Longbottom, I doubt very much he would be interested."  
  
She knew she wasn't going to get anywhere with that tactic, so she changed the subject. "Did Alastor Moody ever tell you anything about students who had cheated on exams?"  
  
"Yes. A couple of times. Why do you ask?"  
  
"Because, he's driving me absolutely insane."   
  
She handed the sheaf of Moody's notes to Snape, who paged through them, chuckling as he did so. "Poor Alex," He ribbed her. "This is definitely above and beyond the call of duty."   
  
She noticed his use of her Christian name but chose not to press the issue. "I'm just not sure how I'm going to be able to deal with this. After I page through all this for the second years, I have to go through this *and* Lee's notes for the third years, then this and Lee's notes and . . ."  
  
Snape interrupted her. "Don't worry too much about it. Some of your predecessors were more competent than others."  
  
"Oh? Do tell." Alex leaned forward avidly, anxious to avoid having to deal with more of Moody's notes.  
  
"Well, there was Gilderoy Lockhart, who was the seventh years' first teacher, who turned out to be a terrific fraud."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"He'd been stealing information from those who'd had real experience with the Dark Arts, and passing it off as his own."  
  
The mirth went out of him, then. "And then there was Barty Crouch."  
  
Alex blanched. "Crouch? What about him?"   
  
"How would you know Barty Crouch?" Snape asked, tensing.  
  
She noticed his tension. "He's the reason I ended up in wizarding school. He wanted to send me to Azkaban for Apparating without a license."  
  
The tension drained from Snape. "No. I'm talking about Barty Crouch, Jr., his son." Then what she'd said hit him. "You Apparated without a license?"  
  
"I was on duty and it was closing time for a local pub. One customer was harassing some of the others, and so I tried to arrest him for being drunk and disorderly, but he ran. I chased him, and suddenly found myself in Edinburgh. Turns out he'd Disapparated, and I sort of instinctively followed him."   
"You're lucky you didn't splinch yourself." Snape said.   
  
"Well, beginner's luck, I guess. I didn't try it again until I was really knew what I was doing."  
  
"So when the Ministry found out that you'd been Apparating without a license. . ." Snape nodded, indicating his understanding of her dilemma.  
  
"Crouch wanted to throw the proverbial book at me, but my advocate finally convinced him to allow me to attend Cabot Academy's wizarding program, and once I was done there, they dropped the charges because I had an American Apparation license."  
  
"A very intelligent advocate."  
  
"Yes. She was." Alex smiled at him. "So, you were saying about Barty Crouch the Younger?"  
  
"I was saying that he was the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher . . . two after Lockhart. You don't need to read his notes, either. He was a Death Eater, and didn't teach them anything useful."   
  
"How on Earth did a Death Eater get the job?" Alex asked, disgust evident in her tone.  
  
Snape surreptitiously touched his left arm. "A Death Eater didn't. He kidnapped the real Alastor Moody and took his place as teacher."  
  
They talked for several more minutes, then, about the legitimate past Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers - Lupin, Fogbottom, Lee, and the real Alastor Moody.   
  
Then Snape stood. "Actually," he admitted sheepishly, "I'm not even supposed to be here. Poppy made me promise to go right back to my apartments and rest for the remainder of the day."  
  
"Snape!" Alex admonished him.   
  
"I know." He'd just remembered the threatening note that most likely still lay on the floor of his apartments. "But I just don't want to go back there."   
  
"So?" She shrugged. "Seems you could rest here as well as anywhere else."  
  
She stood and walked to the mantel. "Here." She handed him a book. "This is one of my favorite Muggle novels. You sit there in that comfortable chair and read, and I'll get some work done."


	8. Untitled

Title: Atonement, Chapter 8  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13   
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. All I own is Alex Farrell.

WARNING: Same sex couple (Harry/Draco) in this part. No snogging or anything. Just an FYI.  
  
=============  
  
At dinner that night, Sprout walked to Snape and told him the final determination in her investigation. "It was undoubtedly the _laceratio_ hex." She informed him.  
  
"What?" He yelled so loudly it bounced from the rafters of the Great Hall. "You took two days to decide it was the very first thing you suggested?"  
  
While Sprout spluttered her explanations, Alex, who had just arrived in the Great Hall, leaped into the fray. "Thank you for all your hard work, Professor Sprout," she said in a pointedly polite tone, silently reprimanding Snape for his lack of gratefulness. "I know this took a tremendous amount of work."  
  
"You're . . . welcome." Sprout seemed uncertain whether she meant this or not.  
  
As she left the table, mumbling to herself, Snape turned on Alex. "You can't possibly believe that she spent all that time actually *working,* do you?"  
  
"Yes." She responded calmly as she sat down in the seat next to Snape. "I do. And she's obviously worked very hard on your problem."  
  
"But . . ."  
  
"What if she'd just assumed that it had been natural causes, or a booby-trap of some sort?"  
  
"Well . . ."  
  
"Because you do know what this means, don't you? That it was a hex?"  
  
"It means nothing." He snapped, thought he knew very well what it meant. It meant that someone had been watching them, and that his attacker had been right there when the ewer-plant ruptured. Of course, the threatening note had made that much clear. This only confirmed it.   
  
Alex sighed, obviously tired of arguing with him. "Whatever you say, Professor Snape."  
  
Snape tensed up, then, hissing slightly between his teeth.  
  
"What?" Alex looked around. Neville had just walked into the room. She guessed that Snape was remembering her suggestion that he talk to the round-faced young man.  
  
Neville made a beeline for Snape and Alex. "Good evening, Professor Snape." He said in a businesslike tone. "Are you feeling all right?"  
  
"Yes. Thank you, Longbottom." Snape responded stiffly, but without malice.  
  
Neville paused at the table a moment longer, as if there were something he wanted to say, but Snape pointedly ignored him, and eventually Neville went away.  
  
"And what are you doing sitting there?" Snape snapped at Alex.  
  
Alex, unruffled, looked at Snape coolly. "Eating dinner." She said simply, pointedly spearing a bite of her pheasant on her fork and putting it in her mouth.  
  
They ate their dinner in silence. After he'd finished, Snape mumbled something about work that needed doing and left the table.   
  
For the next few days, Snape was distant, and Alex left him alone. She had lesson plans to work on, and only three more weeks before the term started.   
  
Then one morning at breakfast, Hogwarts was hosting the annual Wizarding Schools Headmasters Association convention, and the table was nearly full of staff of Hogwarts and other wizarding schools around the world, when Snape came upstairs. He sighed and nearly left the room, thinking he'd just get some food from the house-elves later, even if wrestling with the dishes was an awful hassle that he really didn't need on top of everything else.  
  
Then he saw an empty seat next to Alex. He debated for a moment whether avoiding dragging dishes from one end of the castle to the other was worth bending his stiff neck long enough to eat a meal civilly with her, and decided it was.  
  
He walked over to her. "Is this seat taken?"  
  
She looked up at him, no emotion showing in her gray eyes. "No. Feel free." She turned back to her meal.  
  
Soon, Snape's scrambled eggs and toast arrived and he tucked in. Eventually, he broke the silence. "How are things going with your plans for the term?"  
  
"Just fine." She said in a neutral tone, like she was chatting with a stranger, not talking to someone she'd once considered a friend.  
  
Silence descended again, but Snape tried to fight it off. "I want to apologize for avoiding you these past few days."  
  
"Oh? Have you been avoiding me?"  
  
Snape looked at her pointedly. "I'm trying to apologize here . . . "  
  
She let out all of her breath at once. "All right. Apology accepted." She didn't smile, but her gray eyes lit up with the warmth that he'd remembered from their first days as friends, and they continued eating in silence, but this time it was a companionable silence rather than an awkward one.  
  
After breakfast, they walked to the foyer together. "You mentioned Remus Lupin a while back. What do you know about him?" Alex asked.  
  
Snape's black eyes grew cold. "Why are you asking me?" He asked suspiciously.  
  
"I was just curious," she responded defensively. "I was looking over some of his old notes and there was something splattered on one of the pages. Drops of something."  
  
"Blood?" Snape asked, widening his eyes melodramatically.  
  
"Well, Martian blood perhaps," she said facetiously. "The drops were green."  
  
She continued, shrugging, "It doesn't really matter, but given some of the strange things I've learned of the other Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, I just thought that it might help me understand him a little better."  
  
"Well, it's probably just some kind of herbal tea," Snape said nonchalantly. "Though you're welcome to bring the page to me and I can look it over for you."  
  
"Thanks." She smiled at him. "I'll run up to my office and get the page. Will you wait here, or should I bring it down to your office?"  
  
"Bring it down to the classroom. I'll be in there trying out some new potions I've just found."  
  
They split up, Alex to her office, Snape to his, to get the book that had the potion he wanted to try. After he'd set up the cauldron and was setting out the ingredients, he heard footsteps in the hallway. "Professor Farrell? Is that you?"  
  
For one heartstopping moment, there was no response. All of Snape's fears since the attempt on his life surfaced. His pulse raced, his respiration accelerated.   
  
A quiet knock on the door. "Professor Snape?"  
  
Snape knew that he should recognize the voice, but his mind was in too much turmoil for it to register.   
  
The door cracked open a little. "Are you in here?" The quiet tenor voice continued.  
  
_Malfoy! Draco Malfoy!_ Snape suddenly could breathe easily again. "Is that you, Malfoy?" He asked as Draco stepped into the room, followed a moment later by Harry.  
  
"Yes it is, Professor Snape." Draco said as he walked over to shake hands with his old Potions Master and Head of House.   
  
"It's good to see you, Malfoy. And you, too, Potter." He added as an afterthought. "What brings you back so soon? Homesickness?"  
  
"Oh. No. We just brought the first batch of my father's old Dark Arts books over to Dumbledore and thought we'd stop by for a visit." Draco said.  
  
"Why don't we sit down?" Snape said, indicating the student tables arranged in the room. Harry and Draco sat at the right-hand front table, and Snape pulled his chair over from the desk where he graded papers and sat down.  
  
"So," He opened the conversation, "how is cleaning out Lucius's store of Dark Arts materials coming along?"  
  
"Well," Draco responded. "Except that I think we're going to have to hire a curse-breaker or Auror or something, pretty well."  
  
"A curse-breaker or Auror? Why?"  
  
"My father erected a rather . . . cruel security system around the house, and while we think we've been able to find out what it is, we cannot find anything that will give us an idea of how do disable it."[1][1]  
  
Snape was about to ask which security feature they wanted to disable and offer his services to solve it if they needed it, when Alex came into the room.   
  
"Here's that page I was telling you about." She said, walking directly across the room to Snape.   
  
She had handed the page to him and as he began pretending to examine it - he knew it was the wolfsbane potion he used to prepare for Lupin as soon as he smelled it -- she looked around and noticed Harry and Draco sitting silently at the student table. Her eyes widened in disbelief. "You - you're --. Oh, my God. Do you know who these are?" She said to Snape.   
  
"Of course you do." She corrected herself. She looked back at the two young men. "You're Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Of the Chudley Cannons." She burst out in girlish giggles.  
  
Harry and Draco looked at each other bemusedly. Snape furrowed his brow. "Can - can I have your autograph?" She asked.  
  
"All right." Harry said, as Draco nodded.   
  
She gasped. "I have the issue of Quidditch Weekly with your picture on it in my apartments. I'll go get it and be right back."  
  
She dashed from the room, and the three men watched her leave, confused. "Who was that?" Draco asked.  
  
"That," Snape sighed, "was this year's Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. She's not normally like that." He insisted.  
  
"Oh, ho!" Draco grinned. "So you know how she normally is?"  
  
Snape missed Draco's tone completely. "Yes. She's competent. Intelligent. She was a Muggle police officer before she went to wizarding school."  
  
Draco winked distinctly at his boyfriend. "Seems Professor Snape's got himself a girlfriend."  
  
"Looks that way to me, too." Harry leaned back in his chair, smiling.  
  
"She's not my girlfriend!" Snape hissed in a tone very like that which he used to use for cursing at Harry.   
  
"What do you think?" Draco asked Harry.  
  
"Girlfriend." Harry nodded.  
  
"I've been showing her . . ."  
  
"A good time." Draco inserted.  
  
"No! I've been showing her the ropes around here a little. We eat our meals together occasionally, but She's. Not. My. Girlfriend."  
  
"Well, we really didn't come by to argue with you about your girlfriend." Draco said smoothly. "We came by to ask if you'd like to join us for an outing in Hogsmeade."  
  
Snape shook his head. "I can't. Some of us," he deadpanned, "have real jobs. We don't play games for a living."   
  
Harry sighed. "Looks like it's just the two of us, then, Draco."   
  
"Yep. Looks that way to me, too."   
  
"Say, why don't we invite him to join us for dinner?"   
  
"What a good idea! I knew there was a reason I keep you around." Draco kissed Harry quickly and then turned to Snape. "So, how about it, Professor Snape? Or may we call you Severus?"  
  
Snape shook his head. "I'm afraid that won't be possible." He didn't want to admit that he was afraid that another attempt would be made on his life. "I simply cannot take the time to leave Hogwarts."  
  
Snape got his first inkling that this was planned when Draco said, "You don't need to leave Hogwarts. We'll meet you here. Around 7:00?"  
  
Snape nodded, privately wondering what the two young men were up to. "7:00 will be fine."  
  
Just then, Alex came back in, carrying her copy of _Quidditch Weekly_ and a quill. "I didn't know if you had a quill," She said as she handed the magazine to Harry, "so I brought my own." She blushed.  
  
Harry winked at Draco. "Of course, Professor," Harry said. "It might be easier to autograph this if I knew which name to put on it."  
  
"Oh." Her eyes widened and her blush deepened. "Farrell. Alex Farrell."  
  
Harry wrote on it, _To Professor Farrell, Good luck in the DADA position. Harry Potter._  
  
He passed the magazine to Draco, who simply wrote _Draco Malfoy_ on it and handed it back to Alex. "You know," he drawled, "that'll be a collector's item one day."  
  
"Oh?"   
  
"Yep. After Harry and I get married, I'm changing my name to Potter, so the things autographed by 'Draco Malfoy' will be few and far between."  
  
"Oh. Congratulations on your engagement, then." She smiled widely at the two young men.  
  
Snape cleared his throat. "Professor Farrell?" He asked.   
  
"Sorry. Yes?" She turned to him.   
  
"The spot? Herbal tea, just as I'd guessed. For insomnia."   
  
"Thank you." She said cheerfully as she took the page back from him and, smiling at Draco and Harry again, left the room.  
  
Snape somewhat bemusedly watched Alex leave the room. "I have to apologize for her again." He said to the two budding young Quidditch stars. "She really isn't like that normally."  
  
"That's quite all right, Professor Snape," Draco assured him as Harry fixed him with a pointed gaze.   
  
Some form of silent communication passed between them. Draco smiled, and Harry stood. "I've got to . . . er, use the facilities." Harry said by way of excusing himself as he dashed from the room right behind the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.  
  
===========  
  
1 This is more fully spelled out in another fic I'm writing. My working title for it is "hdfluff," because it will, indeed, be pretty much a plotless series of vignettes, but I don't have a real title decided on yet. Once I have it written and uploaded, I'll try to remember to change this file so that there's a link to that story here, rather than this explanation. [return to story][2]

   [1]: #1
   [2]: #return



	9. Untitled

Title: Atonement, Chapter 9  
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13   
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. All I own is Alex Farrell.  
  
A/N: Well, I fought to keep this from going all romancey, but looks like I lost . . .  
  
=========  
  
Alex was gone by the time Harry reached the hallway. Hoping that she was going up to the Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers' office, he mounted the stairs to the upper floors.  
  
He ran to her office, one that had become so familiar to him over his seven years at Hogwarts, and knocked on the door.  
  
"Yes?" Alex called out. "Come in."  
  
Harry opened the door. "Professor Farrell?"  
  
She gasped and hastily shoved the magazine into a desk drawer. Harry had the impression that she'd been staring at it. "Mr. Potter! Come in!" She indicated one of her guest chairs.  
  
He sat. "Please, call me Harry. Or just plain 'Potter' if you want."  
  
"All right, Harry." She smiled at him. "What brings you to my office?"  
  
He leaned back. "Professor Snape told us that he's been showing you the ropes around here. About the Defense Against the Dark Arts job and things. Apparently, he's also been talking to you about the people who held the job prior to you?"  
  
Alex nodded, wondering where Harry was going with this.  
  
"Well, I had quite a lot of contact with them, particularly Re - Professor Lupin and Barty Crouch. So if you have any questions that Professor Snape can't answer, feel free to ask me."  
  
"Thank you, Harry." Alex smiled.  
  
"You're welcome . . . Professor Farrell?"  
  
"Alex, please. I'm still not used to being called 'professor.' The only title I'm used to is 'officer.'" She smiled. "I'm sure Professor Snape told you that I was a Muggle police officer before I attended wizarding school?"  
  
"Yes he did. How did that happen? Unless you worked for the police before you were eleven?"  
  
"Well, I was Muggle-born, and prone to having strange things happen when I was around," she noticed that Harry gave her a particularly charming smile when she said this, "so when I got a letter accepting me to a witchcraft school, my parents and I simply dismissed it as a practical joke. It wasn't until thirteen years later that I discovered that it was genuine."  
  
"How did you find that out?"  
  
"I was caught Apparating without a license. All the way from Islington to Edinburgh, as a matter of fact."  
  
Harry blinked in amazement. "My only accidental Apparation before I discovered I was a wizard was onto the roof of the kitchens at my school while I was trying to avoid some bullies." He didn't tell her that the lead bully had been his cousin Dudley.  
  
"You didn't!" Alex laughed.   
  
"I did. When I was nine."   
  
They chatted amicably like that for several minutes, but were interrupted when someone else knocked on the door of the office.   
  
"Come in!" She called out.  
  
It was Draco. "Harry!" He whispered. "We've got to go . . ."   
  
"Sorry, love. I just got to talking with Alex, here, and lost track of time."  
  
Draco looked at Harry pointedly, looked over at Alex, and back at Harry.   
  
Harry's eyes widened as he realized what Draco was telling him. "Draco and I were wondering if you would join us for dinner tonight. We'll meet here outside your office around, say, 7:00?"  
  
"Thank you, Harry." Alex smiled. "I'd like that."  
  
"See you then, then." Harry said as his fiance dragged him out into the hallway and off to Hogsmeade.  
  
As soon as they were well away from the Hogwarts grounds, Draco asked Harry, "So you really think Snape fancies her?"  
  
Harry snorted. "You saw the way he watched her whenever she was in the room."  
  
"He used to watch you all the time, too. You don't think he fancies you, too, do you?" Draco seemed somewhat scandalized by the idea.  
  
"Of course not! But the way he looked at me was *completely* different from how he looks at her. Trust me."  
  
"If you say so, Cupid."   
  
Grinning, the two men continued their walk to Hogsmeade.   
  
Early in the afternoon, Alex knocked on the door of Snape's office.   
  
"What?" Snape snarled.  
  
"Can I come in, Professor Snape?" Alex asked.   
  
He sighed and stood. "All right. But the door's locked, so I have to . . ." He opened the door.  
  
"What are you doing?" He asked snappishly.  
  
"Bringing you lunch. What does it look like?" She walked into the room and deposited a plate and a mug of pumpkin juice on his desk. "You didn't come to lunch, so I brought lunch to you."  
  
Snape sighed and looked askance at the sandwich on the plate. Then he looked at it with more interest. He lifted the piece of bread that formed the lid of the sandwich and picked the sandwich up, flipping it over and looking under that piece of bread.   
  
"This is my favorite. How did you know?"   
  
She smiled. "I asked the house-elves what kind of sandwich you get most often."   
  
"Thank you." He said quietly.   
  
"You're welcome."  
  
"Would you like to have a seat?" Snape offered.  
  
"No, thank you. I just thought I'd make sure you have something to eat sometime today. I really have to get back to my own work."  
  
Snape nodded. "I understand."  
  
"I'll see you . . . later?" She asked.  
  
"Yes. Later." After she'd left the room, he sat down behind his desk, gazing at his sandwich. He wiped the sweat off his palms. _Damn me for a fool!_ He berated himself. _Start out angry with her for asking Potter and Malfoy for their autographs, end up all tied up in knots because she brings me a sandwich!_  
  
Angry at himself for this gush of emotion, Snape savagely bit down on his sandwich.   
  
The day passed without further incident and at precisely 7:00, Alex heard a knock at her door. "Is that you, Harry?" She asked.   
  
The door opened a crack. "Yes, it is."   
  
"I'm sorry I'm not already ready, but I lost track of the time." As she stepped out into the hallway, she noticed that Harry wasn't wearing a robe. He was wearing Muggle clothes - a red polo shirt with blue jeans.  
  
"Actually," he blushed a little. "We built a little time to change into the schedule. You'll need to be wearing Muggle clothes for dinner."  
  
She looked at him curiously. "All right. But I'll have to go to my apartments to get changed."  
  
They walked the little distance between Alex's office and her apartments. She gave the password to the painting and she ushered him into her home.  
  
She went through her wardrobe, choosing jeans and a baby-blue scoop-necked t-shirt. Then, self-consciously, she picked up Muggle underwear from a drawer and headed off to the bathroom. "I'll be back in just a moment," she said.  
  
"Take your time." He assured her.  
  
Draco, wearing a green t-shirt and jeans, met Snape outside of his office at 7:00. Or so.  
  
Snape looked at Draco, askance. "Don't tell me I have to wear Muggle clothes." He asked.  
  
Draco nodded. "If you don't have any, I'm sure we can arrange something."  
  
"Don't worry, Malfoy. I have plenty of Muggle clothes."  
  
Snape disappeared into his apartments, returning a minute later wearing pumpkin-colored flares* and an off-white turtleneck. A wide black belt was woven through the belt loops of his trousers.  
  
Draco's jaw dropped and he shook his head. "No. That's just *not* going to do."  
  
"What's wrong with it? It still fits."  
  
"You look like a fugitive from _The Mod Squad_ or something." He sighed and grasped Snape gently but firmly by the upper arm. "Let's see what else you have."  
  
As they went into Snape's apartments, Snape asked, "_The Mod Squad_?"  
  
"Muggle television program." Draco said shortly. "Same era as that outfit."  
  
Alex emerged from the bathroom, and Harry let out a low whistle. "Pity you don't wear Muggle clothes more often, Alex." He winked.  
  
"Oh, you." She said dismissively as she grabbed a pair of socks and tennis shoes from her wardrobe and sat down to put them on.  
  
Draco looked through Snape's wardrobe, mumbling to himself. "Black robe, black robe, black robe. You think you have enough black robes?"  
  
Snape shrugged. "They're serviceable enough."  
  
"Fine." Draco sighed. "Black robe, black - jeans. What about these?" He held the trousers out to Snape.  
  
"I wear those when I have to go foraging for ingredients." Snape said in a slightly offended tone.  
  
"But are they clean? Do they fit?"  
  
"Yes. Why?"  
  
"You're wearing them." He threw the jeans to Snape, who just barely caught them. Then he went back to Snape's wardrobe. "Black robe, black t-shirt. Hmm. . . It'd make you look like a Ninja. Not good. Bl - hold on -- green shirt." He held the button-down shirt, a bright emerald green, out in front of him. "Could use a little ironing, but there's nothing for it right now." He tossed the shirt to Snape and shrugged out of his own t-shirt.  
  
Snape retreated into the bathroom to change, as Draco muttered incantations over his shirt, turning the green t-shirt into a royal blue t-shirt. He put the shirt back on just as Snape emerged from the bathroom, clearly ill at ease.   
  
"Untuck the shirt." Draco instructed him.  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
Draco nodded. "The shirt's not ironed. It looks silly tucked in. And," he reached forward and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.   
  
"Just one more thing . . ." The younger man looked around the room. "Do you have anything to pull your hair back with?"  
  
"Why are you so interested in how I'm dressed?" Snape asked, now that he had a moment to consider as he handed a length of leather to Draco.  
  
"Because . . ." Draco began as he tied the leather in a knot around Snape's hair. His voice faded out and he never gave Snape an answer.  
  
"There." Draco grabbed Snape and pulled him into the bathroom, modeling him in front of the mirror. "You look great!"  
  
Snape looked in the mirror and had to admit to himself that Draco was right. The green shirt played down the sallowness of his complexion, and the leather tie holding his hair back brought out his eyes. Nevertheless, he still felt naked.  
  
"Ready to go?" Draco asked.  
  
"As ready as I can be, dressed like this." Snape responded bitterly.  
  
"We're supposed to meet Harry on the ground floor." Draco said as they left Snape's apartments. _And I hope your instincts are correct on this, Harry. I'm afraid we're making an awful mistake._  
  
Harry and Alex arrived on the ground floor of the building. "What are we waiting for?" She asked.  
  
"We're waiting for Draco." Harry told her. He didn't know why he wasn't telling her that Snape would be joining them. He guessed it was because if Draco followed instructions, Snape wouldn't know either, until they were face-to-face.  
  
Where was Draco, anyway?  
  
Snape and Draco climbed the steps up from the dungeon, Snape wondering the entire way why it was so imperative that he wear Muggle clothes. And why his first outfit had been unacceptable. As they rounded the corner, he saw Alex. His first thought was _Dear God. It should be illegal for her to go around with her legs hanging out like that._  
  
He knew there was nothing indecent about Muggle blue jeans, but something about the way she wore them . . . He ruthlessly squashed those feelings down. She was a co-worker. An associate. Nothing more. She could never be anything more.  
  
============  
  
*"Flares" are, of course, bell-bottoms to those of us in the U.S.


	10. Untitled

Title: Atonement, Chapter 10   
By: PepperjackCandy   
Rating: PG13   
Disclaimer: You recognize it? It's J.K. Rowling's. All I own is Alex Farrell.

Am I allowed to plug mailing lists here? If so, I've started a new general fanfiction list -- for posting fics only. Anyone can join. Anyone can post their fics there. All other communication is by private e-mail between listmembers. If you're interested, click here: [HP_fanfic][1]. This list is for G-PG13 fics only. I also have an R and NC17 list, if you're interested, called [HP_fanfic_adult][2]  
  
=========  
  
As they came around the corner, Alex gasped when she saw Snape. _His eyes._ She thought. _They're usually so obscured by all that hair, I've never really noticed them before. They're probably his best feature._  
  
Her eyes skimmed his body, then. _Though the rest of him isn't too bad, either._ She thought assessingly.  
  
_What's going through her mind?_ Snape wondered as Alex looked at him wordlessly. He'd seen her jaw drop as their eyes met for the first time, and he could just hear her laughing at him. He looked ridiculous. _Why'd I let Malfoy talk me into this?_ He lamented.  
  
Harry and Draco watched the Potions Master and the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher silently. Their eyes met and Draco nodded slightly, acknowledging that he now saw the attraction that his lover had commented on earlier. He wasn't sure if Snape was ready to act on that attraction now, but he fervently hoped that his teacher would be ready for it someday.  
  
"You look very nice, Severus." Alex tried the Potions Master's name out on her tongue, steeling herself for a biting response.  
  
Instead, he fairly blushed. "Thank you. You look good, as well." There was some strangled quality in his tone that she couldn't quite identify.  
  
Snape felt his abdominal muscles tighten when Alex addressed him by his Christian name. It had been nearly twenty years since a woman had used that name so casually, since Laura had used his name so casually, and he was so tied up in knots he couldn't sort out whether he liked it when Alex used it. He had responded as best he could, hoping that he didn't come across as upset as he felt.  
  
Draco cleared his throat. "So, are we ready to go then?"  
  
Snape felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. "Go? Why didn't anyone tell me that we were going somewhere?" _Of course we're going somewhere, you idiot,_ he chastised himself. _Did you think we'd gotten all dressed up in Muggle clothes so that we could have a picnic on the floor of the library?_  
  
Alex saw Snape stiffen and said reassuringly. "I'm sure it'll be fine, Severus."   
  
Harry and Draco exchanged bewildered looks. Harry looked inquiringly at Alex, who simply gestured her deferral to Snape.  
  
Snape pursed his lips. "Professor Farrell," he began pointedly looking directly at Alex, "and Professor Sprout have this strange idea that someone has made an attempt on my life." The uncomfortable subject of the threatening note returned to Snape's mind, but he ruthlessly shoved it back down with all of the other memories he didn't want to face.  
  
Alex recoiled a little at his hostile tone, stung that he rejected her attempt to advance them to a first-name basis, especially since he was the one who began it by calling her by her Christian name earlier.   
  
"Did someone make an attempt on his life, Alex?" Harry asked her.   
  
She nodded. "One of the ewer-plants ruptured. The acid nearly hit Professor Snape." She looked directly into the Potions Master's black eyes as she said his name. "Professor Sprout investigated very thoroughly, and it could only have been sabotage. The _laceratio_ hex, actually."  
  
Draco and Harry followed Alex's line of thought. "But if it was a hex, then . . ." Draco looked at Alex, who nodded.   
  
"Nonsense." Snape snapped. "It doesn't prove a thing. We can't even be certain that Professor Sprout's conclusions were correct."  
  
"Well we can dismiss it for tonight, at any rate." Harry said.  
  
Alex and Snape looked at Harry curiously.  
  
"We'll be traveling using this." He pulled a small wad of fabric out of his jeans pocket. "It's a portkey. No-one but Draco and I know where it will take us, and it's impossible to follow someone traveling by portkey, so at least for tonight, you can be certain that you won't have any worries on that score."  
  
Snape shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me." He said, but internally he was rejoicing. Ever since he'd found the threatening note, he had been feeling increasingly claustrophobic, and it was a good feeling to know that he'd be leaving the Hogwarts campus safely.  
  
Harry looked at Alex, who nodded her assent silently. "All right. Everyone join hands." He instructed them, and was disappointed to see Snape walk away from Alex to take Draco's hand. He indicated for Alex to take Draco's other hand, and took Alex's free hand. Then he stuck the portkey back in his pocket and fiddled with the wrappings until he could touch the smooth metal surface of the silver charm that he and Draco had used.   
  
Then he felt the now-familiar tug behind his navel, and everything went black.  
  
The first person to speak when the rematerialized in a small copse of trees was Alex. "So that's a portkey." She said, in a slightly queasy tone. "On the whole, I think I prefer aeroplanes."  
  
Draco grinned at her. "But you can't beat a portkey for time-efficiency."   
  
Just then, Alex noticed that it was full light. "It was sunset back at Hogwarts." She said. "How far have we come?"  
  
"Oh, just 5,000 kilometres or so." Harry grinned. "We're in Texas. It's 2:00 p.m. here."  
  
"Texas?" She asked, amazed. "Well, I guess the portkey is worth a little nausea, then."  
  
"So," Snape snapped. "What's in Texas that's worth visiting?"  
  
"You'll see." Draco winked at Harry, making Alex wonder what they had planned.  
  
They stepped from the copse of trees to see that it was a beautiful, sunny day. It was also a hot, sunny day. They skirted the parking lot (Snape gawped at the variety of cars, trucks and sports-utility vehicles in the lot), walking up a gravel pathway past an elaborately-landscaped pond, to the front of the restaurant.   
  
One of the hostesses at the hostess spoke. "How many are in your party?"   
  
"Just one moment." Harry said with a smile as Draco indicated the waiting area to Snape. The ceiling of the waiting area was a bright blue, with just the vaguest suggestion of clouds, matching the sky outside exactly.   
  
Snape's jaw dropped as he walked that direction. "How could Muggles . . ." He whispered, then he saw the sky begin to darken and grow red in the west, as if sunset was approaching. He furrowed his brow, and continued watching as the sky above him slowly turned night-black. He walked back towards the door, where he could see clearly it was as sunny as ever.  
  
He turned a confused expression on Harry and Draco, who began laughing. "We thought exactly the same thing as you did when the local Quidditch team brought the Cannons here for dinner." Harry said quietly so that only Snape and Alex could hear.  
  
"It's mechanical." Draco said. "But it reminded us so much of the sky in the Great Hall, that we just *had* to share it with someone who'd appreciate it."  
  
Harry then turned to the hostess. "Four, please."  
  
The hostess took four menus and a basket of tortilla chips from the counter behind her and led the quartet into a cavernous room with whitely-stuccoed walls and wooden beams across the ceiling. Off to one side was a small group of booths.   
  
"Is this all right?" She asked in an accent very like a midwestern twang, indicating a booth that had a small bowl of salsa on the table.  
  
"Yes. It's fine. Thank you."  
  
By an unspoken agreement, Draco and Harry sat across from each other. Snape immediately slid into the booth next to Draco, and Alex sat next to Harry.  
  
Snape opened his menu and stared at it for a few minutes, completely unable to decipher terms like _enchilada_ and _flauta_. "What's a -- 'chicken fried steak'?" He finally asked in desperation.  
  
The other three shrugged, looking as confused as Snape felt.  
  
"Well, you can get what Harry and I are having." Draco suggested. "The beef fajitas. Pretty basic. Tortilla, that's a kind of bread, and meat, with onions and peppers. And they bring toppings and things, too."  
  
Snape nodded. "I'll defer to you on that one."  
  
Harry looked at Alex, who nodded as well. "Who'm I to argue? I'll have the same."  
  
Harry took one of the chips and dipped it in the salsa. Draco followed his fiance's example.  
  
Snape nervously took a chip and followed in his students' footsteps.   
  
"Professor Snape?" Draco asked before Snape could get the chip to his mouth.  
  
"Yes?" He responded testily.   
  
"You might want to wait until we get our drinks. That's kind of spicy."  
  
Snape snorted. "It can't be all that spicy." He bit into the chip and immediately his eyes started watering. "See?" He said weakly. "Not bad at all."  
  
It took a great force of will for the other three not to laugh.  
  
Their waitress came by to take their beverage orders.  
  
"I'll have a tea." Harry said.  
  
"I'll have the same." Draco responded.  
  
"And I." Snape said.  
  
Alex rounded it out, with, "I will as well."  
  
"Umm. . . Could you wait a second?" Harry asked the waitress.   
  
"'Tea' probably isn't what you're expecting. In Texas, when you order a 'tea,' you get iced tea." He clarified.  
  
"Well, I doubt they have butterbeer." Snape said. "So why not? I'll try this 'iced tea.'"  
  
Alex nodded. "So will I."  
  
Harry placed their order of enough beef fajitas for four, and soon their food had arrived. Harry watched Snape watching Alex wordlessly as she piled the meat onto the tortilla, folding it up and holding it so that the entire thing stayed together, then followed her example.  
  
She saw him watching her and smiled softly. "I went to wizarding school in the U.S." She shrugged self-deprecatingly. "I had a few classmates who'd order things like this for their meals and learned from watching them."  
  
Harry could see as clearly as if Snape had said the words that the Potions Master's interest in her hadn't been solely for her fajita-eating technique.  
  
"So," Harry said, to break the tension at the table, "You were a Muggle police officer. I'll bet you have a bunch of exciting stories to tell about those days."  
  
She smiled, then giggled a little. "Well, there was the time that we caught an American fugitive in our borough. . . ."  
  
Harry kept Alex talking for a while, then coaxed Draco into telling them a suitably-edited account of their adventures locating materials at Malfoy Manor, and soon enough, their food was gone and the bill had arrived.  
  
Snape handed it to Draco, who handed it to Harry.  
  
"I thought you had the money." Harry said.  
  
"Didn't you bring it?" Draco deadpanned, then he grinned. "Yes. I have it right here. Nice, fresh, American dollars." He took the wad of cash from his pocket and counted out the total for the bill plus a healthy tip, and the quartet stood.   
  
Their waitress came by again, and Draco handed her the money, then they left the restaurant, walking back down the gravel pathway to the copse of trees. There they joined hands again, Snape to Draco to Alex to Harry, and portkeyed back to Hogwarts.   
  
=========  
  
A/N: All right, before you go accusing me of stereotyping by having her notice his eyes first, but him notice her legs, remember that this is the first time she's ever seen him without his hair in his eyes. And Snape has very seldom seen Muggle clothing. And he's never seen Alex in Muggle clothing. Trust me, if their positions had been reversed, *her* eyes would have been the first thing *he'd*'ve noticed.  
  
Also, about the "everyone joining hands and Harry touching the portkey" thing, I figured that'd work, since Harry was able to bring Cedric's body back carrying the body and holding the portkey himself. I'm not sure if it's impossible to follow someone traveling by portkey, but it seems that at a minimum it would take some kind of preparation, just like the portkey itself does.

   [1]: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP_fanfic
   [2]: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HP_fanfic_adult



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